Black Friday And Cyber Monday ... And Now Green Monday?

First came Black Friday... and then Cyber Monday. And now shoppers are faced with Green Monday, which comes today?

Indeed, eBay coined the term "Green Monday" in 2007 to describe the Monday occurring around the second week of December, which has tended to be the heaviest (or among the heaviest) online spending days of the year. Why? Because it's around this time that online shoppers start worrying that they'll miss out on free shipping deadlines if they don't buy now.

Last year on Green Monday, online retailers raked in $854 million, a bit of a decline from 2008, for a day's total slightly behind Cyber Monday ($887 million), according to comScore, a marketing research company.

The marketing firm expects sales to be brisk this time around as well.

Already, for the holiday season-to-date, more than $21.95 billion has been spent online, marking a 12-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. The most recent week (week ending Dec. 10) reached $5.15 billion in spending, an increase of 11 percent versus the corresponding week last year, as two individual days each surpassed $900 million, comScore reported Sunday.

"We anticipate that Green Monday this year will be another strong day for online buying, leading off what will be the heaviest spending week of the season," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. "However, with Free Shipping Day occurring on Friday, December 17, it is likely that buying will get distributed more evenly across the week rather than concentrated so heavily in the early days of the week."

But Brad Wilson of http://www.bradsdeals.com, an online coupon and deal expert, says consumers shouldn't feel pressured into buying gifts online this week.

"Hundreds of stores have overnight deadlines into the afternoon and evening of the 23rd," he said.

Wilson urges shoppers to be patient and buy closer to Christmas if possible, pointing out that a lot of items, such as electronics and televisions and other big ticket gifts, are more expensive now than they were on Black Friday. But he said prices are likely to drop, although not for another week or two.

Even so, many huge stores—including Sears, Target, and Toys R Us—will be seeking to cash in on the hype of Green Monday by offering an array of special online sales on Monday.

Green Monday Deals:

GreenMoneyDeals.com

Dealio.com

BradsDeals.com

Online Shipping Deadlines:

BradsDeals.com