When I first heard about the anticipated online-shopping bonanza known as “Cyber Monday”, I was a little skeptical:

I’m a little surprised that the from-work option is still so pronounced. Five years ago, when dialup was still the prevalent method of online access from home, it was to be expected that people reserved certain Web activity for the broadband connections available in the office. But today, when DSL and cable modems are more widespread? I’m always mindful (unlike others) that home broadband is far from universal, but still.

Looks like my Spidey-sense was tingling just right: Not only did the Monday after Thanksgiving not come through as an exceptionally robust online shopping day (although ecommerce sales were up, owing to the general holiday shopping surge), it turns out that the whole thing was a marketing concoction dreamed up by online retailing trade organization Shop.org.

I guess rushing at breakneck speed to your computer doesn’t have the same pizzazz as fist-fighting with some stranger over a 70-percent-off sweater shortly after the store opens at 5AM…

Even though Cyber Monday has turned out to be a lot of gas, I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes on a life of its own. It wouldn’t take much (more) marketing and promotion to really make it a retailing signpost. I think decoupling it from the shop-from-the-office notion is necessary, though; that idea seems totally antiquated, for the reasons I expressed earlier.