December 3rd set to be hottest date on e-commerce calendar

Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - 12:20 by Simon Crisp

Cyber Monday is famed due to its status as the UK's busiest day of the year for safe shopping online, which in 2012, will fall on December 3rd, according to Marin Software.

This is based on the assessment of statistics from last year, which suggest that the first Monday in the month of Christmas is most likely to draw millions of people to e-commerce sites.

The idea that December 3rd will be Cyber Monday in 2012 is, in part, extrapolated from the data which showed a surge in the number of consumers clicking on paid ads, which occurred last year on the first Monday of the month.

Retailers generally expect to experience their busiest period during the run up to the festive season, although they tend to take special precautions, to make sure that their sites are up to the task of handling increased traffic on days that are predicted to be busiest of all.

This means that they will be taking this information to heart and getting ready to receive an influx of visitors, looking to carry out safe shopping online ahead of December 25th.

Interestingly, it seems that the UK's Cyber Monday is actually going to be a little later than that in the US, which will fall on November 26th.

Analysts are warning that retailers in the UK need to prepare their promotions earlier than ever to remain competitive. They also state that m-commerce will be more important than ever before, since 16 per cent of ad clicks registered in December 2011, came from portable devices and that this should be higher in 2012.

For consumers, the good news is that competitiveness in the online marketplace has never been higher, so bagging bargains should be easy, if you are willing to shop around with reputable retailers.