The Monday after Thanksgiving in the US, labelled as Cyber Monday, is billed as one of the busiest online commerce days of the year. This year, however, it is spilling into the rest of the holiday season as more consumers use mobile devices to shop when and where they please. Equipped with tablets and smartphones, shoppers are ordering online over a longer period, data from ComScore Inc. show, and one third of average monthly traffic for leading retailers is from smartphones and tablets. As a result, more and more stores are offering holiday deals that can reach consumers through these devices. The incentive to the shoppers – apart from the practicality of using your phone to buy stuff – is offers giving them an added discount if they order from their mobile applications. Amazon and Ebay, the world’s largest online retailers, as well as other retailers, are taking advantage of the smartphone industry to create online promotions and mobile apps to attract tech-savvy gift buyers, over the many weeks leading up to the holidays.

The holiday season is crucial for companies such as Amazon which depends on people buying gifts in the lead up to Christmas to fuel its biggest-revenue quarter. The trend is accelerating as commerce on tablets and smartphones grew twice as fast in the third quarter as desktop online spending. According to the National Retail Federation, online holiday sales should increase as much as 15 percent to $82 billion this year. As more purchasing happens over the internet, it won’t be surprising if e-commerce eventually completely overtakes shopping in real-life stores.