News flash! There's no such thing as Cyber Monday

Now that Black Friday, historically the busiest offline shopping day of the year, is breathing down our collective necks, it's just about time for the media to start glomming on to that more recent trend in the world of shopping: Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, a date which supposedly marks the busiest online shopping day of the year.

The only problem with all the hype: Unlike Black Friday, Cyber Monday doesn't actually exist.

To be more accurate, yes, Cyber Monday exists in the sense that there is a Monday on the calendar following Thanksgiving, but it's never actually been the busiest e-shopping day of the year.

Sure, it's a busy day, but the busiest online shopping day of the year actually tends to arrive considerably later, usually arriving in mid-December as lazy Christmas shoppers start to panic about what to get their loved ones. (Everyone loves Ugg boots!)

And while the date of that most feverish shopping activity always varies, one interesting phenomenon has been observed: It usually is a Monday. Looking back at the last nine years, seven of the busiest online shopping days have indeed fallen on a Monday, with only one Tuesday (2008) and one Wednesday (2006) breaking the cycle. Also of interest: The busiest e-shopping day of the year has been slowly getting earlier and earlier. In 2000 the busiest day was December 18. By last year it had crept up to December 9. So perhaps it's possible that the Monday after Thanksgiving will, eventually, become the busiest online shopping day of the year after all.

What's all this mean for you? Aside from giving you something to talk about at Christmas parties, not a whole lot, but it's also possible that there's more than one reason that mid-December makes for the most fertile online shopping time of the year. Will bigger discounts actually arrive after the end-of-November crush comes and goes? It might be worth hanging tight for a week or so just to see if e-tailers don't get a little less stingy with the bargains as they try to end 2009 with a bang.