Somehow it’s magically become Christmas time again and 2012 is going to be another record breaking year for online retail. On Cyber Monday (3 December 2012) we’re predicting UK Internet users will make 115 million visits to retail websites, up 36% from last year and setting a new record as the busiest day ever in online retail history.

There is often some confusion about Cyber Monday and in particular its relationship with Mega Monday (sometimes these are used interchangeably when in fact they are different days). I thought I would take the opportunity this week to settle a common misconception around the big Christmas shopping days.

The confusion stems from a fundamental difference in American and British shopping patterns. In the US the beginning of the Christmas shopping season begins after Thanksgiving. As Thanksgiving is not a holiday we celebrate that much in the UK, our shopping season doesn’t really get going until the first week of December.

In the online retail space specific sales days have grown around these peak shopping periods. In the US, Black Friday is the name given to the first day after Thanksgiving and kick starts the holiday shopping season. We’ve also had the advent of Mega Monday in recent years which is the Monday immediately after Thanksgiving and is a continuation of the Black Friday sales. Mega Monday is also sometimes called Cyber Monday in the States because of the focus on online shopping on this day.

However, in the UK Cyber Monday has nothing to do with Thanksgiving and instead is always the first Monday of December. This represents the biggest pre-Christmas shopping day of the year for British consumers. Somewhat unhelpfully, some retailers describe successful retail Mondays in the build up to Christmas as a “Mega Monday” which has nothing to do either with Thanksgiving or the first Monday of December. This is exactly what happened last year when Kelkoo proclaimed 21 November as Mega Monday adding to the confusion about when people would be actually doing their shopping online.

From an Experian Marketing Services perspective this is how we define the pre-Christmas shopping days: Black Friday (day after Thanksgiving), Mega Monday (first Monday after Thanksgiving), Cyber Monday (first Monday of December). This year Thanksgiving is on 22 November 2012 which means Black Friday will be 23 November, Mega Monday will be 26 November and Cyber Monday will be 3 December.

Looking at UK Internet visits to retail websites last year you can see how Cyber Monday (5 December 2011) was by far the biggest pre-Christmas shopping day of the year with 84.6 million visits to retailers on that day.

You can see from the chart that Black Friday and Mega Monday were still significant retail days in the UK and that they were bigger than other Mondays and Fridays in November. This is partly because retail websites like Amazon promote their Black Friday sales worldwide so UK consumers can still take advantage of these promotions. However, it’s important to note that there is organic growth of visits to retail sites in the build up to Christmas anyway, so although Black Friday and Mega Monday will have a positive impact on UK retail visits, this is part of a larger growth trend.

In summary, Black Friday and Mega Monday are big shopping days in the US, but for UK shoppers it’s all about Cyber Monday, which this year is going to be 3 December 2012. Stay tuned to the blog and Twitter for our Christmas updates and whitepaper. If you want to find out more about how Experian can help your company maximise its digital strategy over Christmas please visit our website.