By MAE ANDERSON
AP Retail Writer
NEW YORK – Cyber Monday started as a gimmick to get people to shop at their desks on the first workday after Thanksgiving. But if you promote something enough, it can take on a life of its own.
This year, stores swamped customers with online ads and e-mail deals, and sales could top $1 billion, making it bigger than any single shopping day last year.
Online sales were already running 15 percent ahead of last year’s by 3 p.m. Monday, with the biggest shopping hours of the day still to come, according to IBM’s Coremetrics tracking service.