The New Black Friday: Green Monday?

Black Friday and Cyber Monday may be the best-known days to get holiday shopping deals, but one of the biggest shopping days of the season is happening right now: Green Monday. Digital research company comScore defines Green Monday as the last Monday at least 10 days before Christmas, and last year, it was the third-biggest online shopping day of the season (after Cyber Monday and the day after Cyber Monday).

What Is ‘Green Monday’?

Perhaps the rush to spend results from realizing Christmas is less than two weeks away and you may not have time to shop in physical stores during the work week. A 2008 press release from eBay indicates that the second Monday in December was consistently the busiest online shopping day of the year since 2001, so it seems someone decided to harness that organic demand and dub it a shopping holiday. The origin of the term isn’t clear, though several stories on the topic cite that eBay news release as one of the first references to Green Monday.

Online retail data from comScore shows that Green Monday is a huge sales day, though the day doesn’t quite have the name recognition of Cyber Monday or Black Friday. Among the five online retailers with the most visits on Cyber Monday, according to comScore, only Walmart and Best Buy are advertising Green Monday sales. The Amazon, eBay and Target home pages don’t say anything about Green Monday, though they’re heavily promoting their holiday deals.

As that old eBay press release suggests, timing probably has more to do with this being a big shopping day than the name Green Monday and its designation as a shopping holiday. On Green Monday 2014, people spent $1.6 billion when shopping online (not including mobile sales), and consumers are generally spending more this shopping season than they were last year, according to comScore.

Holiday Shopping 101

Whether they’re calling it Green Monday or not, retailers know today is a big online shopping day, so if you still have gifts to buy, today might be a good day to look for deals. Remember to keep an eye on your budget, particularly your credit card balances.

Getting close to your credit card’s credit limit can be really bad for your credit score, so pay attention to how much of your available credit you’re using to avoid credit score damage. (You generally want to keep the amount of debt on each card and collectively below 30% and ideally 10% for best results.) You can see how your credit card spending affects your credit scores by getting two free credit scores every 30 days on Credit.com.

The New Black Friday: Green Monday?

What Is ‘Green Monday’?

Holiday Shopping 101

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