So now that “Green Monday”, i.e. the second Monday of December, has joined the holiday shopping landscape, does it live up to its color-of-money signifier?

The early numbers, per the Chase Paymentech Pulse Index of online retail activity, suggests it doesn’t.

No permalink for the analysis from yesterday’s aggregate results, unfortunately; so I’m going to repost here. Since I actually provided the verbiage and number-crunching for this one, I’ll invoke fair-use rights:

GOOD BUT NOT GREAT “GREEN MONDAY” FOR PULSE INDEX
Chase Paymentech Pulse Index - 12/11/07

As retail industry observers anticipate record-breaking results from yesterday’s Green Monday online activity, the volume achieved by Pulse Index eRetailers for the second Monday of December (12/10) shows a healthy rebound from the prior weekend. In fact, sales totals increased 31.1 percent from Sunday 12/9 to Monday.

However, the totals from the day – $113.3 million sales and 2.1 million transactions – fell short of previous Pulse Index record-setting days during the 2007 holiday shopping season. In particular, it’s well below the current Pulse Index all-time high of $154.1 million, set on Wednesday 12/5. This would indicate that Green Monday may not have much of a halo effect for the online shopping sector beyond eBay and its affiliated websites.

Monday’s upward trend is consistent with the established online shopping pattern of pronounced early-week activity by consumers. Pulse Index data for the 2006 holiday shopping period found Tuesdays to be the busiest online shopping days, and Wednesdays appear to be experiencing the heaviest volume of the week during 2007. Based on this, Monday’s uptick should usher in higher totals for the next couple of days.

Given that Chase Paymentech fairly dominates the electronic payments space, I’m thinking this benchmarking data is fairly representative of the ecommerce sector generally. So much for going for the Green…