Note: Cyber Monday is November 30 this year. The term ‘Cyber Monday’ made its debut in a November 2005 press release issued by Shop.Org noting how the Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday was very popular for online shopping. And yes, online shopping continues to grow in popularity, but CivicScience aims to reveal more insights beyond that…

Nearly 1 in 5 (18%) U.S. consumers ages 18 and older are very likely to shop on Cyber Monday in 2015, a growth of several percentage points over stated intent in 2014. It’s clearly a sales day more favored vs. the door-buster days: compare those numbers to only 3% of consumers who told us they are very likely to shop this year on Thanksgiving Day and 6% who say they are very likely to shop on Black Friday (both of those days show slight declines in shopping intent over last year). Some reports put 2014’s Cyber Monday single-day sales at nearly $2.7 billion.

Our polling shows that 35% of U.S. adult consumers who plan to spend money for the holidays say they will do at least half of that spending online; this is an increase of 4% compared to our data in 2014. We’ve already amply covered in our reporting how consumers most dislike crowds and lines associated with the in-store experience this time of year, so Cyber Monday is poised to be even bigger in 2015 as more shoppers trade the footwork for the convenience of clicks. All of this means even more business for shippers, like the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, UPS, and others.

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Who’s more likely to make purchases on Cyber Monday this year? Here’s what we know about them from the attribute analysis available in our InsightStore™ platform:

  • They are over 60% more likely to be under age 35 (although ironically, it’s also the younger demos who tend to enjoy in-store holiday shopping more than older shoppers).
  • Gender wise, it’s pretty close to the general population split, with a slight edge to women. (Men tend to procrastinate holiday purchases more, so Cyber Monday may be too early in the season for them.)
  • When it comes to holiday shopping in stores, they are more likely than average to dislike crowds, lack of product selection, and carrying bags – all of which online shopping alleviates.
  • They are bigger online shoppers for the season in general: They are 66% more likely than average to say over 75% of their holiday spending will happen online.
  • They are also 161% more likely to say they will spend a little more on the holidays in 2015 vs. 2014.

So where will these Cyber Monday shoppers spend their money?

In terms of spending categories, electronics and media is expected to be at the top of most of their list (which may be due to bigger price tags on many of those items), but clothing and accessories is not far behind.

As far as they types of online sites that will see the most shopping traffic, e-commerce-only sites like Amazon.com will see the most, followed by retail store websites, and then auction-type sites like eBay.

Cyber Monday also means a great opportunity for advertisers to capture an audience who is predisposed to like them. Here’s a smattering of some brands and categories that rank higher in favorability among expected Cyber Monday shoppers compared to average:

  • Over 2X more likely to like Peet’s Coffee & Tea
  • 103% more likely to be an active user of Pinterest (use it daily or weekly)
  • 80% more likely to like Kia cars, and they are 47% less likely to drive an American-made car
  • 61% more likely to like Buffalo Wild Wings
  • 59% more likely to like drinking Coca-Cola Classic
  • 54% more likely to visit YouTube daily
  • 43% more likely to like eating at Denny’s

Those are just a few examples that we found doing a cursory search in a few minutes. Such advertisers may be wise to target the online shopping traffic on Cyber Monday, offering special deals or incentives to bring them to their landing pages.

So, “Happy Birthday / Anniversary, Cyber Monday” (you enduring and successful marketing-made event, you). Meanwhile, CivicScience’s always-on consumer polls will keep a close eye on how much of a dent it puts in consumers’ shopping progress for the season.