As many of you have probably noticed, online shopping has continually become more and more popular each year. Consumers' love of shopping from the comfort of their own homes has led to a recent phenomenon called "Cyber Monday." Cyber Monday takes place every year on the Monday immediately following Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Rather than having to camp outside in the cold to get Black Friday deals, companies have started offering large online discounts to customers on Cyber Monday.

Though Black Friday has been around longer than Cyber Monday, it may not be the most popular shopping day of the year for long. According to IBM Benchmark, a well-known marketing research database, Cyber Monday sales for 2011 were about 33 percent higher than last year, and even higher than the year before that. Not only did the number of sales increase, but the average amount of each order also rose from $193 to $198. More data gathered from this year's Cyber Monday shows that there were two purchasing peaks: the first around 11 am, and the second around 7pm, which is different than Black Friday's early morning sales peak.

With two sales peaks in one day and a record high participation rate, Cyber Monday managed to sell 29 percent more merchandise than Black Friday. Even though Cyber Monday has only been around for a few years, it has managed to outshine the Friday-after-Thanksgiving tradition that has been around even longer. The fact that a relatively new tradition can surpass a long-standing custom really emphasizes the growing importance of branding your online presence with a functional, user-friendly e-commerce website.

Cyber Monday also caused an increase in mobile shopping traffic. In 2011, mobile sales almost doubled from last year's 2.3 percent to 6.6 percent on Cyber Monday. Despite smart phones' popularity, the iPad actually had the highest conversion rate (5.2%) of all mobile devices. However, even with the large increase in mobile device usage rates on Cyber Monday, the majority of people used computers to do their shopping.

As proven by the rapidly increasing popularity of Cyber Monday and all online shopping in general, the internet is becoming more and more influential in people's everyday lives. Because the world is becoming more consumed by the web, as seen by Cyber Mhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifonday having a greater amount of sales than Black Friday this year, companies and brands may start shifting their marketing focus and emphasis to Cyber Monday. Given that online shopping has become so popular, it is incredibly important for organizations and brands to seek Pittsburgh web design professionals' help in order ensure they have an operational and secure e-commerce website.