In the wake of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the United States when retailers hope for sales to put them "in the black", SoundBite is teaming with loyalty-marketing specialist Mall Networks to issue alerts to tell mobile customers about each "Deal of the Hour" offered on Shop.org's cybermonday.com Web site. This is the third year that Shop.org, the digital division of the National Retail Federation, has sponsored this sort of eHoliday activity. The trade organization sponsored a customer survey that leads it to expect that "53.5 percent of workers with Internet access, or 68.8 million people, will shop for holiday gifts from work" this year. 

The survey, conducted by BIGresearch in early November 2009, also showed taht 73.8% of young adults 18-24 with Internet access will shop at work. The notion of using text alerts to inform shoppers of impending bargains is merely reinforcing a well-established behavior.

Over 600 online merchants participate in Shop.org's activities. The majority of them have both brick-and-mortar stores, as well as a cyber-presence. When you count "free shipping" as an offer, nearly nine in ten (87.1%) of these retailers will have a special promotion for Cyber Monday. According to Shop.org, "the most popular promotions are expected to be specific deals (42.9%), one-day sales (32.9%), and free shipping on all purchases (15.7%). Half of retailers (50.0%) will distribute promotions and deals to shoppers through a special Cyber Monday email, and now self-identifying shoppers can register to receive text messages regarding the hourly specials from participating online merchants.