Major Retailers Set Records on Cyber Monday

After watching brick-and-mortar retailers post so-so Black Friday sales, online retailers are hoping that shoppers are more generous with their holiday spending on Cyber Monday.

Research firm comScore expects $2 billion in sales on Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, an increase from about $1.47 billion last year. Online sales are accounting for an increasingly larger amount of total holiday spending — at about 10 percent.

Average spending for the Thanksgiving weekend was off about 4 percent this year, according to the National Retail Federation, at a planned $407.02 per shopper from Thursday through Sunday, down from $423.55 last year. The retail group does expect total holiday sales to rise 3.9 percent to $602 billion.

In response to Internet sales, Seattle-based online retailer Amazon beefed up employment at warehouses nationwide, including five in Central Indiana, as it anticipated the biggest ordering day of the year. It expected to hire 70,000 seasonal workers at its distribution centers, up 40 percent from last year.

More than 6,000 associates work at the Whitestown facility in Anson alone, a facility equal in size to 21 football fields.

Amazon spokeswoman Stacey Keller expects online orders this year to top the record 26.5 million set last year on Cyber Monday — a pace of 306 items ordered per second.

“We expect this holiday season to be our best ever,” Keller said. “We've seen growth year over year.”

Like Amazon, FedEx Corp. also prepared for its busiest day in company history. FedEx expected to make 22 million shipments around the world Monday, an 11 percent year-over-year increase. The company expects to make more than 85 million shipments through Saturday, a 13 percent year-over-year increase.

“Our work force of more than 300,000 team members worldwide is ready to deliver the holidays once again this year,” said Frederick W. Smith, chairman, president and CEO of FedEx Corp., in a prepared statement.

As busy as Cyber Monday may be, Richard Feinberg, a professor in the Department of Consumer Sciences and Retailing at Purdue University, said it's not a one-day event in the league of Black Friday. Online shoppers, he said, began ordering in earnest Thanksgiving weekend and will continue placing orders right up until Christmas.

He's predicting small increases in spending during the holiday season, not the leaps retailers saw before the recession.

The economy still is struggling, Feinberg said, and shoppers aren't quite ready to empty their wallets and purses.

“People will be shopping,” he said, “but they will be spending less money. They have less money to spend.”

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