Click Monday to reinforce cyber selling

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New Zealand will get its own version of the Northern Hemisphere's "Cyber Monday" - when internet retailers band together to offer special discounts - this month.

Click Monday, the local version of the online marketing event, will begin at 7pm on November 25 and run for 24 hours.

Big-name retailers - including Briscoes, Rebel Sport, Hallenstein Brothers, Glassons, Whitcoulls, Icebreaker and Smith & Caughey - are taking part.

Cate Bryant, an e-commerce consultant who organised the event, said all of the brands would list their deals on a central website, clickmonday.co.nz, and consumers could then click through to retailers' websites to make their purchases.

"It really reinforces the retailers' businesses because they're getting a whole lot of traffic," Bryant said.

"Retailers love it because they're getting qualified traffic and they get to manage the transaction."

Cyber Monday, which takes place on the Monday after Thanksgiving, began in the United States in 2005 and has grown steadily to the point where online sales topped almost US$1.5 billion ($1.8 billion) last year, a 17 per cent lift on 2011.

Similar events also take place in Britain, Portugal, Germany and Canada.

Bryant said Australia's version of the marketing event, Click Frenzy, pulled in sales of around A$10 million ($11.4 million) last November, which suggested Click Monday could generate sales of up to $2 million here.

Meanwhile, this country's biggest listed retail business, The Warehouse Group, has decided to go it alone and hold its own Click Madness event, which begins at 9am tomorrow and runs until just before midnight.

The company is promising "never before seen online deals" across all of its online platforms from The Warehouse to electronics seller Noel Leeming, sports gear retailer Torpedo7 and pet.co.nz

Chief executive Mark Powell said it was a chance to showcase all of the company's online businesses to consumers.