The Day After Black Friday: Cyber Monday

What has become the largest day for online sales in any given year is nearly upon us again. Cyber Monday, the first Monday after the long Thanksgiving weekend, is right around the corner, and if history is any guide, it should be another record day for online sales.

Last year, online shoppers spent $1.46 billion on Cyber Monday according to data from comScore Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) and the research firm is projecting that total online spending for the 2013 holiday season will rise from $144 billion a year ago to $164 billion this year. That total includes only desktop PC shopping, and does not take into account traffic and sales from mobile devices like tablets and smartphones.

comScore's projected 14% rise in holiday sales this year would translate into a 14% rise in Cyber Monday sales, and a total of $1.66 billion. Whether that growth actually happens or not depends to a large extent on the outcome of Black Friday sales both in brick-and-mortar stores and online.

Nielsen reports that 88% of consumers plan to use their computers to shop on Cyber Monday. Some 37% of consumers will be using tablets and 27% will be using smartphones. Even more interesting, perhaps, is that 85% Nielsen's respondents said they would not be shopping in retail stores on Black Friday and 46% do plan to shop online on Cyber Monday. Retailers have some work to do to overcome those numbers.

Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY), for example, is taking on online behemoth Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) by offering many items at prices very close to Amazon's and has concocted a price-matching guarantee as well. To combat such forays, Amazon has been offering Black Friday deals all week and is teasing its Cyber Monday offerings as yet another full week of special deals.

Have all the special deals and prices done nothing more than pull sales forward? We won't know the answer to that until the holiday shopping season is behind us, but there's a good chance that could be happening. The period between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year is six days shorter than it was last year, and retailers need to pull sales forward if they are going to have a successful year. Overall the season might turn out better than expected, but big sales now, online and off, could mean a tapering as Christmas gets nearer.

Amazon, which received nearly 110 million unique visitors in October, is the sixth-ranked of the Top 50 web properties according to comScore and the leading traditional retailer is Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT), with almost 40 million unique visitors. Walmart has lowered its free shipping minimum to $35, matching Amazon's raise from $25 to $35. Last year's Cyber Monday sales were the best in Walmart's history, and the president of the company's U.S. website said that more than two-thirds of Black Friday shoppers at Walmart stores say they plan to shop again on Cyber Monday.

Walmart will also invite customers who use its mobile app, are Facebook fans, or are subscribers to company emails to a pre-Cyber Monday shopping event on Sunday. The company is not planning to leave any stone unturned if it can pull its sales forward and guarantee a winning holiday shopping season early.

The heightened competition for sales this holiday season is good for consumers looking to stretch their gift-giving budgets. They're also getting some help from lower gasoline prices. But that doesn't mean that sales through Christmas will follow a smooth upward trajectory. There's likely to be a plateau and fairly soon given the vigor with which retailers have pumped up this opening weekend.

8 Super Super Bowl Numbers

The Super Bowl has grown from a game that didn’t sell out in 1967 to an unofficial national holiday it has become today.

Along the way, players have broken records, beer has been spilled and, somehow, guacamole has become the dip of choice to the point that avocado shortages can cause panic among party planners.

Fans can recite the key stats by heart. The Steelers have the most rings, six, the Packers won the first two, and on and on.

But even for non-fans, those who tune in to only to critique the ads, there are numbers that pique the interest. The numbers can be big. Half a billion big. Or small. Very small. Like zero.

(Check out: 8 of the Worst Financial Meltdowns by Athletes)

But they all add up to the biggest sporting event of the year in the U.S.

Check out our 8 Super Super Bowl Numbers:

$500 million to $600 million

That’s the amount the NFL says the Super Bowl will generate in economic activity for New York City. What city wouldn’t want to put up with the headaches of planning for the big day? Well, some economists say the number is inflated, by as much as 10 times. One study showed that the average amount generated by the big game from the early 1970s to late 1990s was $32 million. We’ll punt on figuring out who’s right.

$266 million

That’s the total salary for the Seahawks and Broncos this year, with the Seattle players raking in just over half of that. Consider that the minimum salary for a veteran was just $10,000 per year in 1970.

$100 million

The amount bet on the game last year set a Super Bowl record last when it topped out at $99 million on Las Vegas sports books. The $100 million mark seems possible this year. A chart on Boydsbets.com breaking down the Vegas bets on the game since 1991 shows an astounding rise in the amount wagered. In that year, $40 million was bet on the Giants-Bills game. In case you’re wondering, the sports books made out OK, keeping $7.2 million of last year’s wagers.

$4 million

That’s the cost for 30 seconds of commercial time during the broadcast on Fox. Forbes notes that in 1967, that commercial time cost $279,000 when adjusted for inflation. With viewership more than double the 51 million of the first Super Bowl. That year, the number of viewers who saw a commercial per ad dollar spent was 183, last year the figure was down to 29. That person-per-ad price has plummeted because, even though the number of viewers has more than doubled from the 51 million of Super Bowl I, the cost of an ad has skyrocketed more 15 times.

$1.1 million

That’s the amount Indianapolis says it lost hosting the 2012 Super Bowl. Costs for insurance, turning a major street into a pedestrian mall and installing other attractions to visitors added up. Amazingly, the city had figured it would lose some money on the deal. Just not quite so much.

$2,200

Looking for a tailgate party before the big game? Well, your options are limited. To one. It’s run by the NFL and the price of admission is $2,200. Besides food and beverages, there’ll be live music and entertainment. For the record, ESPN hosts what many consider the top party of the weekend on Friday night. The cost for entry is $1,554. That’ll allow you to mingle with plenty of celebrities and listen in on music performances.

$1,300

New York might be a super expensive city, but tickets to the game can be had at relatively cheap prices. That’s if you consider well over a thousand dollars cheap. The price for seats on one secondary market plummeted as worries over cold, or even snowy, weather have been bandied about in the media. Even on the top site, Stub Hub, tickets were available for about $1,500, about a grand less than a week earlier. Those seats are all far from the action. To be closer to the field, you’ll have to part with about $2,500. The face value of seats ranges from $500 to $2,600. For the first Super Bowl in 1967, tickets went for $12. And the game wasn’t sold out.

0 and 7

That doesn’t sound like much, but if you bought a box in the office pool, those two numbers give you the best chance of winning at 13.16%, according to information on si.com that looked at every regular season and playoff game played since 2006. The combinations of zero and three and zero and zero follow. The worst pair is nine and nine at 0.13%. Not that there’s anything you can do to make sure get the best numbers.

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