Growth in online sales may set Cyber-Monday record
By Laura Stevens, Wall Street Journal
ATLANTA — FedEx Corp. expects to ship a record 22 million packages on Dec. 2, known as Cyber-Monday, which would make it the first time ever it has been the busiest shopping day of the holiday season.
The total number of packages that day would be an 11 percent increase over the company’s busiest day last year, FedEx said.
FedEx expects to handle 85 million shipments from Dec. 1 through Dec. 7, a 13 percent increase in shipments over last year and another record for the holiday season.
FedEx attributed the increase to the continued acceleration in online retail, including electronics, clothing and luxury goods. In addition, Cyber-Monday, a term coined to label one of the busiest online shopping days of the year, falls later in the shopping season this year.
“Online commerce is growing at three to four times the rate of retail,” said Raj Subramaniam, FedEx executive vice president of marketing and communications.
Also, Cyber-Monday got a boost this year because Thanksgiving falls so late in November. Thanksgiving is Nov. 28, which leaves less than four weeks before Christmas. No matter how much shopping gets done in brick-and-mortar retail stores on so-called Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and into the following weekend, FedEx still expects a lot of shopping to extend into the workweek on Monday.
