Cyber Monday dilemma: Brady or bargains?

Globe Staff

Not everyone will be glued to their TV sets tonight to watch the New England Patriots battle the New Orleans Saints. Indeed, many non-football fans are expected to be online scouring the Web for holiday shopping bargains today - many of them during football prime time.

Today, of course, is Cyber Monday. Shop.org, a division of the National Retail Federation, claims credit for coining the term in 2005 "after retailers noticed a trend of people shopping online on the Monday after Thanksgiving," Shop.org said in a press release. "Today, Cyber Monday is viewed as the ceremonial kickoff to the online holiday shopping season, when shoppers flood websites expecting robust promotions and many retailers highlight some of their most compelling holiday offers."

In its early days, when the Internet was still going mainstream, many folks did much of their online holiday shopping at work so they could take advantage of the boss's high-speed Internet connections. In that benighted era, most people were still using dial-up modems to get online from their home computers, and those pokey modems made online shopping at home a hassle. Now, though, high-speed home connections are widespread in American homes. And much to the relief of bosses everywhere, more people will do their Cyber Monday shopping at home.

So, for the dedicated online shopper, the Pats-Saints game tonight won't be the only game in town, and retail websites will in theory be competing with Monday night football for consumers' attention. That poses a dilemma for someone who values both good deals and good football --- Brady or bargains? Of course, in an era when multi-tasking is a sport of its own, there will presumably be folks who do some shopping while keeping an eye on the game at the same time.

In any event, here are some results from Shop.org's latest survey, which was conducted by BIGresearch:

According to the survey, 96.5 million Americans plan to shop on Cyber Monday this year, up from 85 million in 2008.

"While some Cyber Monday shoppers will choose to shop from the office, the large majority will shop from living rooms and kitchens all across the country," Shop.org said in a press release. "According to the survey, 91.5 percent of Cyber Monday shoppers – or 88.2 million Americans – will shop from home on Cyber Monday while 13.5 percent, or 13 million people, will shop from work."

(The photo of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady that appears with this post was taken by Tom Shaw of Getty Images Europe.)