



Analysis of the most current email data suggests an expected 30% increase in volume on Black Friday and Cyber Monday over last year -- highly dependent on how strong sales are by the end of November. Online searches including the term "Black Friday" in the query have increased over the past three years. Combinations using the term increased 41% year-over-year to reach 7,822 during the spike for "Black Friday" searches in 2007.
Consumers will start shopping online a few weeks prior to Black Friday, the official start of the shopping season, according to the folks at Experian, a global information services company. In 2008, when Thanksgiving fell in late November, purchase activity occurred earlier -- several weeks prior to Black Friday. In fact, between the weeks ending Nov. 3 and Nov. 10, 2008, the share of adults who made an online purchase more than doubled, increasing from 11% to 23%.



