Online shopping was booming in the years leading up to 2005, when the National Retail Federation (NRF) first coined the term “Cyber Monday.” Amazon was founded in 1994, eBay launched in 1995 and Walmart debuted its website in 2000 — shoppers quickly grew accustomed to adding items to a virtual shopping cart rather than a physical one. And yet, every year, when Black Friday rolled around, e-commerce sellers felt left out of the revenue boost guaranteed to brick-and-mortar stores.
“With the growth of online shopping, online-only players like Amazon were looking for a way to capitalize on Thanksgiving weekend sales,” says Katherine Cullen, the NRF’s vice president of industry and consumer insights. “The Monday after Thanksgiving became dedicated to online sales, differentiating it from Black Friday.”
Since the first “official” Cyber Monday, the event has grown into what’s historically the most profitable day for e-commerce sales. But recently, retailers have expanded their online presence during Black Friday and extended their deals to be weeks long. By doing so, they’ve essentially blended Black Friday and Cyber Monday together, making many question whether there’s a difference between the shopping holidays anymore.
To help you better understand Cyber Monday, I charted its history and talked to experts about their 2025 predictions. Will this year’s event become the biggest online shopping day in U.S. history? We’ll have to wait and see.
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Looking back at Cyber Mondays of years past
For years, there have been signs that e-commerce dominates the holiday retail market, even on Black Friday, which originated as an in-person shopping event. In 2019, for the first time ever, Black Friday topped Cyber Monday as the busiest online shopping day, according to the NRF. This trend has repeated itself every year since, proving that one day dedicated to in-person shopping and another dedicated to online shopping is an obsolete concept. Now, the weeks leading up to and during the Cyber Five (the five-day period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday) are an all-around shopping frenzy, whether people buy online, in-store or both.
That said, no event set Cyber Monday up for record-breaking success like the Covid-19 pandemic did in 2020. It forced most companies to halt in-person shopping, sparking a massive surge in e-commerce. And during the holiday season, retailers pushed online sales more than ever. They also reformatted their Black Friday and Cyber Monday events to run for weeks throughout November, and closed their stores’ doors on Thanksgiving Day. These efforts led to consumers spending $10.8 billion during Cyber Monday 2020, making it, at the time, the biggest online shopping day in U.S. history, according to Adobe.
Ever since their 2020 success, retailers have continued leaning into online sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and stretching discounts across multiple weeks. But in 2021, online revenue on Black Friday and Cyber Monday fell for the first time ever by a little over 1% each, according to Adobe. Experts attribute the declines to shoppers taking advantage of early deals and spreading out their spending rather than concentrating purchases around specific days.
How early deals would impact Black Friday and Cyber Monday was experts’ main focus in 2022, especially because Amazon kicked off holiday shopping sooner than usual by hosting its first October Prime Day (officially called Prime Big Deal Days). But there wasn’t a repeat of 2021, and there hasn’t been since. Sales for both events steadily increased in 2022, 2023 and 2024. In fact, Adobe estimates total Cyber Monday 2024 sales to be around $13.3 billion, making it the largest online spending day in U.S. history (for now).
While Black Friday typically sees the most online shoppers, Cyber Monday takes the cake for revenue, some of which stems from etailers designing their websites and apps to pressure shoppers into checking out, says Dr. Ross Steinman, a professor of consumer psychology at Widener University. Many advertise Cyber Monday as shoppers’ last chance to save, and display clocks on their homepages that count down the seconds until midnight. Adding this gamification aspect to the sale motivates shoppers to be even more competitive while deal-hunting, especially toward the end of the night, says Steinman. On Cyber Monday 2024, the most shopping activity took place between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., during which consumers spent $15.8 million every minute, according to Adobe.
Some say growth in retail sales over the past few years is due to inflation, but the experts I talked to agree that two factors are responsible: consumer demand and retailers’ ability to meet shoppers where they are. Consumers are hungry for savings opportunities as economic concerns like tariff-related price hikes loom. By offering weeks of online deals, people can shop whenever they want and from wherever they are. Retailers, made Cyber Monday as convenient and stress-free as possible, says Steinman.
What to expect during Cyber Monday 2025
Similar to years past, experts predict that Cyber Monday sales will steadily increase in 2025, once again making it the most profitable day for e-commerce sellers during the holiday season. Adobe projects Cyber Monday sales to be around $14.2 billion, up about 6.8% year-over-year — if everything plays out as expected, Dec. 1, 2025, will be the biggest online shopping day in U.S. history.
Like during Black Friday, however, Cyber Monday deals likely won’t be as strong as usual. Companies are adjusting to higher tariff rates imposed earlier this spring, causing them to rethink their sales strategies. “Retailers are trying to keep prices as low as possible heading into the holiday season, and they’re doing really dynamic discounting,” says Lauren Murphy, Wells Fargo’s managing director of retail finance. “But because they’re absorbing some of the cost impact from tariffs, they may not be able to discount goods as much in this new economic environment.”
That said, retailers are still motivated to sell through their inventory, so you’ll find tons of worthwhile deals — you’ll just have to employ some extra strategies to make a good deal great. “The onus now looks to the consumer to be savvy, hunt for promotions and shop around to get the best value,” says Murphy. She also notes that retailers are likely to do a round of price hikes in early 2026 as they import new merchandise, so Cyber Monday (and Black Friday) may be the last time you see costs this low.
Trends to watch during Cyber Monday 2025
There are a few trends experts have on their radars going into Cyber Monday. The first is how much mobile sales will overtake desktop sales. During Cyber Monday 2024, 57% of online sales came through a mobile device, an all-time high that represents $7.6 billion and a 13.3% increase year-over-year, according to Adobe. Experts say that number will go up even more this year. Consumers have a clear preference for shopping on mobile devices rather than desktop computers and laptops, which has become a key growth driver for the digital economy, says Vivek Pandya, director of Adobe Digital Insights.
As mobile spending has grown, the channels through which consumers discover products, make buying decisions and form communities around shopping have changed. Beyond AI, which Pandya expects to be a major driver of traffic to retail sites throughout the 2025 holiday shopping season, social media influencers play a big role — their content prompts consumers to make purchases 10 times more often than social media overall, according to Adobe. Many creators partner with brands and offer followers exclusive promo codes, which shoppers can stack with discounts to make the deal even more worthwhile.
“TikTok continues to have momentum, but when it went dark for a little bit in January, it gave Instagram more strength,” says Pandya. “People trust social media influencers, and they’re discovering what to buy on social first. It’s indicative of consumers wanting to have this conversation around products and triangulate across multiple sources of information before they buy something.”
Buy now, pay later platforms are somewhat responsible for increased mobile spend, too. They’ve become an integral part of mobile checkout, and give consumers a convenient way to afford what’s on their wishlist, especially as they feel the crunch of lower budgets and higher costs of living, says Pandya. This year, Adobe expects Cyber Monday to set a record for buy now, pay later spend in a single day, with $1.05 to $1.08 billion — it’s likely to become the first day to ever cross $1 billion in buy now, pay later spend. Why? Because as shoppers feel the pressure of Cyber Monday discounts ending, they’re more likely to impulse buy, especially if they’re shopping on mobile, he says.
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How Cyber Monday came to be
Cyber Monday takes place the Monday after Thanksgiving and Black Friday. The NRF coined the name “Cyber Monday” in 2005, introducing it in a press release that described a new trend the group began noticing a few years prior: Without fail, online revenue and traffic spiked the Monday following Thanksgiving. Soon after, media outlets and retailers started using the term.
Like Black Friday, Cyber Monday was a response to consumer behavior, says Barbara Kahn, a professor of marketing at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. When people returned to work on Monday after the holiday weekend, they had access to computers and the internet again (in the ‘90s and early 2000s, not everyone owned a computer or kept one at home like we do today). At work, shoppers could browse online-only retailers for deals, gaining access to a new assortment of products they might not have found in stores, says Kahn. Retailers with an online presence in addition to their storefronts also hosted Cyber Monday sales, giving them the opportunity to reach a larger audience than just those who shopped in -person on Black Friday.
Beyond a new and more diverse assortment of deals, Cyber Monday was attractive to shoppers because it offered a convenience and flexibility that Black Friday didn’t. People could shop quickly whenever they had time and from virtually anywhere, which became part of the event’s novelty, says Kahn.
Since most people now have around-the-clock access to the internet through their phones, tablets, laptops and watches, the original rationale behind Cyber Monday is “a bit archaic,” says Kahn. But its legacy remains. Cyber Monday established a new type of holiday sale: one that occurred exclusively online and stretched out the shopping weekend.
The blurred line between Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Black Friday and Cyber Monday were once distinct events: One was for in-person shopping and the other was for online shopping. But at this point, they’ve completely fused together. Black Friday is getting longer each year as some retailers offer sales starting in early November or even late October. And Black Friday has been outpacing Cyber Monday in terms of total online shoppers, although Cyber Monday historically grosses more revenue.
“We still use the terms ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Cyber Monday,’ but it’s evolved so far beyond that,” says Cullen. “Shopping is shopping regardless of what channel it’s occurring on, which reflects a shift in consumer and retailer thinking. They’re now shopping across multiple channels, depending on what’s most convenient for them and their lifestyles.”
This change in consumer and retailer thinking puts pressure on Cyber Monday sales to start earlier and end later. Shoppers today expect early deals, so many retailers begin their Cyber Monday sales weeks in advance of the event itself. Then they extend the shopping holiday on the backend as well.
Some retailers with an online presence and brick-and-mortar stores differentiate between Black Friday and Cyber Monday by highlighting different deals. Others simply change the name of their sale from “Black Friday’’ to “Cyber Monday” as the week goes by without offering new deals. That’s led some retail experts to see Cyber Monday as a continuation of Black Friday rather than a distinct sale, creating what they call “Black November,” a month of promotions leading up to the official events.
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Meet our experts
At NBC Select, we work with experts who have specialized knowledge and authority based on relevant training and/or experience. We also ensure that all expert advice and recommendations are made independently and with no undisclosed financial conflicts of interest.
- Barbara Kahn is a professor of marketing at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
- Katherine Cullen is the vice president of industry and consumer insights at the National Retail Federation.
- Dr. Ross Steinman is a professor of consumer psychology at Widener University.
- Vivek Pandya is the director for Adobe Digital Insights.
- Lauren Murphy is Wells Fargo’s managing director of retail finance.
Why trust NBC Select?
I’m a reporter at NBC Select who has covered Black Friday and Cyber Monday since 2020. I’ve written about the history of both events, and explained what to buy and what to skip during each one. I’ve also appeared in Black Friday and Cyber Monday-related NBC News NOW broadcast segments, and co-hosted a For What It’s Worth livecast episode about the sales. Additionally, I cover the best deals during all major shopping holidays throughout the year, and how tariffs are impacting shopping habits and consumer goods prices. For this piece, I interviewed five experts about the history of Cyber Monday, plus I researched related retail trends and consumer spending data.
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