Reuters Money

Yes shoppers, there is a Cyber Monday.

A new poll shows that one-third of shoppers still don’t know what Cyber Monday is. And if you are one of them, Cyber Monday is “the online analogue of Black Friday,” dealnews says. (The poll was released exclusively to dealnews by Lightspeed Research.)

More specifically, Cyber Monday is the first Monday after the Thanksgiving weekend. Cyber Monday gets its name from the idea that savvy shoppers comb bricks-and-mortar stores for items they want to buy during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and then go online to find better deals on Monday.

Last year, 96.5 million Americans shopped online during Cyber Monday versus the 79 million Americans who shopped at brick-and-mortar retailers on Black Friday, according to the National Retail Federation. But they certainly didn’t spend as much — wired shoppers  spent $887 million online during the Cyber Monday of the 2009 shopping season. (By contrast, 2009 shoppers spent $10.66 billion on Black Friday.)

Truth be told, it is often more expensive to shop online than at the shopping mall, Beverly Blair Harzog of CardRatings.com, tells Reuters. But when you factor in the free shipping — and the ability to avoid those big crowds and long lines at stores — the extra cost can be worth it.

If you are looking for deals, you need an online shopping strategy. Here are some tips from Linda Stern which include smart credit card strategies and visiting online shopping portals. In addition, Beth Pinsker, editorial director of dealnews, has the following recommendations:

Browse what’s on sale
You don’t need to wait to get the local newspaper on the Sunday before Thanksgiving to get all the ads in your hand and page through them. Just click through online, either by paging through a PDF, or sorting through lists that sites like dealnews have already digested and categorized for you. You can get search engines to find any kind of gift you are looking for, and items that you don’t even know yet that you want.

Make an electronic shopping list
Many people end up skipping this step and just toss things in their cart while they’re shopping. They end up with two sweaters for Aunt Sue and no toy for the kid next door. Oops. The Web makes this so easy. You can easily create electronic wish lists, whether through an engine at a retail site or (usually better) writing them down in a Google document. You can transfer the list to your phone (either by sending yourself an email, or downloading the document) so you can take it with you.

Price-match your options
The most essential step in the process is to take that list and check it twice. You want to find out which stores have been naughty and which have been nice. The great thing about doing this electronically is that you can set up price alerts for key items to know when they go on sale. And you can use a site like PriceGrabber to see all your options at once. Note the prices now, check them again before you buy, and you’ll always get the best deal. Also make sure to consult our list of stores that match prices of competitors.

“Like” your stores on Facebook
For additional discounts, “like” all the stores you plan on perusing on Facebook. You’ll get some additional discounts and alerts about price drops. You’ll see sales ahead of time, too.

Pinsker also recommends using Foursquare, the location-based service, to snag deals. And don’t wait until Black Friday to start clicking. Between bites of turkey and apple pie, you can find unadvertised deals on Thanksgiving day, she says. For more high-tech shopping tips from dealnews, click here.

Finally, consumers should consider another type of deal this holiday season – a gift card. More than half of holiday shoppers plan to give gift cards, according to American Express. Plus, a gift card is easy to transport and truly one-size-fits-all.