Well, I learned something new this past weekend. Specifically, the Monday following Thanksgiving weekend is one of the busiest days for online retailers. Dubbed “Cyber Monday” by some, online merchants track one of the largest one day spikes in sales on this particular day much like “brick and mortar” purveyors experience with “Black Friday” the day that follows Thanksgiving.
Well, I learned something new this past weekend. Specifically, the Monday following Thanksgiving weekend is one of the busiest days for online retailers. Dubbed “Cyber Monday” by some, online merchants track one of the largest one day spikes in sales on this particular day much like “brick and mortar” purveyors experience with “Black Friday” the day that follows Thanksgiving. It is the Christmas shopping season…happy Cyber Monday to you!
According to Shop.org, an association of online retailers, more than 75% of their members reported a significant surge in traffic on the Cyber Monday Website following the extended Thanksgiving weekend in 2004. Shop.org gives the following reasons for the surge:
1.Workers returning to their offices from their Thanksgiving break have access to faster and more secured internet connections than in their homes. The association speculates that many are simply logging on to finish up shopping overlooked during the weekend.
2.Timed promotions and discounts by online retailers for that date.
All told, online retailers are expecting a 30% surge in sales in 2005 over last year. Compare that figure to the 5% increase the retailing industry is expecting for this Christmas shopping season over last year and you now understand why the internet is a favorite place for shopper and merchant alike.
So, log on right now and order from your favorite online merchant. Just don’t let the boss man catch you shopping on company time!
In reality, there is no single day that kicks off the season. Online shopping ramps up from the middle/end of November and runs through about a week before Christmas.
The Monday after Thanksgiving was convenient and made more sense years ago when consumers didn’t have high speed internet access at home. The rational for this is that consumers didn’t want to shop on a slow speed dial-up connection at home, so they waited until they could use their employer’s high speed connection.
Now that most consumers have a high speed connection, this Cyber Monday Website rational makes less sense. It is probably more likely that after a big Thanksgiving dinner, consumers will get online and get a head start on their online shopping instead of waiting until Monday when they need to get caught up on their work after the four day layoff.
The trend in consumer behavior has also been to ease into the holiday shopping season. We can measure this with the appearance of holiday decorations and merchandise appearing earlier and earlier every year. You can now find some Christmas décor before Halloween in some stores. It wouldn’t be there if consumers weren’t buying it. The same goes for Cyber Monday Website as we ease into the holiday season as we can now find holiday décor year round online.
As far as the biggest online shopping day goes, that occurs between one and two weeks before Christmas as most of us procrastinate, waiting as long as possible. In our neighborhood stores, the biggest shopping day is usually the last Saturday before Christmas. Our deadline for completing our shopping is the last day that we can have something shipped so that it arrives before Christmas, about a week before. That deadline isn’t that important either as we can always get a last minute gift card which is also prolonging the holiday shopping season as more of our shopping occurs after Christmas when we have those gift cards in hand.
Hopefully the media will realize that “Cyber Monday” doesn’t really exist and we won’t be hearing Cyber Monday Website all this year.
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