Online holiday season sales for 2007 will reach $31 billion, up 18.5% over 2006.[1]
Cyber Monday, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, resulted in $733 million in sales this year, setting a one day online spending record. 60 % of the spend came from work computers, with the balance coming from home and university computers.[2]
Typically, the biggest days for online holiday season sales come 10 to 15 days before Christmas. Cyber Monday ranked 12th among the biggest sales days. The biggest online holiday sales days were also the biggest online sales days of the entire year.[3]
In 2007, online traffic grew 10% year over year on Black Friday–the Friday after Thanksgiving—rising to 21.2 million unique visitors across more than 120 representative online retailer sites. There were only 19.2 million unique visitors last year. Consumer electronics and computer hardware and software sites showed the largest growth at 235% and 121%, respectively.[4]
Originally, Thanksgiving was celebrated on November 30th. However, in 1939, FDR declared that Thanksgiving would be made the fourth Thursday in November. The move was an effort to extend the holiday shopping period and help retailers, although not all merchants were in agreement. The new day was made official in 1941.[5]
The long and storied history of Santa Claus involves the Coca-Cola company helping to promote the modern day image of the character as a fat, jolly old man in a red and white suit. The company hired artist Haddon Sundblom in 1931 to create a Santa Claus image for their advertising and helped establish it as a cultural icon.[6]
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