Are you recovered yet from the frantic weekend of deal hunting?  First you had Mobile Thursday (haven’t heard of that one yet? see below), then Black Friday, followed by Small Business Saturday, and then (after taking Sunday off) you had Cyber Monday.

With all the hype it’s hard to know where the interest is among the broader public and not just within the press. Analyzing online data is one way to get at reality.

Selling the sales has been a growing trend over the past couple of years.  While we’ve had Black Friday for many years, it has been growing, at least online, for the past several.  Take the following chart from Google Trends that shows interest over time [online].  It has been steadily gaining ground since data is available in 2004.


Cyber Monday? Not far behind within the online world. While there was hardly a mention of it in 2005, it was showing up by 2006 and growing quickly ever since. (Note that each graph is indexed individually and data is not comparable between different graphs.)
Small Business Saturday is a relative newcomer, however, not showing up until 2010 though it quickly gained momentum.


And that brings us to Mobile Thursday. Mobile Thursday is, in short, the idea that people, while not at home on Thanksgiving, get a head start on shopping via their mobile phones. So far, Google Trends hasn’t picked it up.

When comparing all of them you see that, despite the hype the new terms may get, Black Friday is still the dominant day. Cyber Monday is growing, while Small Business Saturday is barely a blip.
How long will that remain the case as things move online and to mobile devices? And will Sunday receive it’s own moniker (“rest and relax Sunday”)?

Analyzing the data behind the hype can help you get at the underlying truth. What is your data saying?