Cyber Monday Is a Joke

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Did anyone here set the alarm early this morning? No, not to get back to work but to don a robe and slippers and fire up the Internet to land some sweet Cyber Monday online deals?

Anyone? I didn't think so. I think it's about time that we bury Cyber Monday. For starters, with so many traditional retailers offering up many of their doorbuster deals online, I would like to coin the term Cyber Friday if I may.

According to comScore Networks, online shopping traffic spiked 42% higher on Friday than during last year's Black Friday. Most of those gains came from the bricks and mortar chains that are now offering many -- though clearly not all -- of their holiday deals online.

I was on vacation with the family on Friday so I wasn't able to join the mall mobs. However, I was able to land some pretty sweet deals that morning at the bustling online sites of Circuit City (NYSE: CC), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), and Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN).

Yes, Amazon. The stock opened lower this morning after initial reports had most of the "Cyber Friday" traffic gains going to old school chains like Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), but I had no reason to abandon my good friend Amazon. I had taken the e-tailer to task for being out of line on many toys relative to Wal-Mart's steep price cuts, but over the weekend I saw it was matching the same $15 price for the Monopoly Here and Now board game. Perfect. No state sales tax and free shipping through Amazon made it an easy decision.

What I find amusing is that now even the old school chains are trying to cash in on Cyber Monday. I'm in the market for an entry level GPS system to keep my 8-year-old son's "are we there yet" queries to a minimum. This morning, walmart.com is selling a Garmin (Nasdaq: GRMN) StreetPilot i5 for just $289. It is billed as "special pricing only for Cyber Monday, November 27th" and I Froogled to find the same system selling for as much as $100 more elsewhere. Was I in? Not yet. I was also tempted by a Circuit City deal offering for a Lowrance iWAY 350C system with a lot more features for just a smidgeon more.

Which way did I ultimately lean this morning? Do you really care? My point is that conventional stores are taking over Cyber Monday too. It's not just an e-commerce game anymore. Is it too late to coin the term Black Monday?

Amazon, Best Buy, and Garmin have been recommended to Motley Fool Stock Advisor newsletter subscribers. Wal-Mart is an Inside Value pick.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz has been shopping online for about as long as Amazon.com has been in business. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. T he Fool has a disclosure policy.