Retailers Gear Up for Cyber Monday
Online retailers are apparently really getting into the Cyber Monday holiday spirit.
More than 70% of online retailers are planning special promotions for the Monday following Thanksgiving this year compared to 42.7% two years ago, according to a survey conducted by BIGresearch on behalf of trade group Shop.org.
Shop.org’s parent, the National Retail Federation, coined the term Cyber Monday in 2005 as recognition of the sales spike that occurs online every year on the Monday after Thanksgiving as people return to work.
As a result, Cyber Monday is considered the official kickoff of the online holiday shopping season, as opposed to Black Friday, or the Friday after Thanksgiving offline.
However, as reported here last week, the first Monday after Thanksgiving isn’t the only Cyber Monday, according to DoubleClick Performics.
Online retail sales spike every Monday between Thanksgiving and Christmas and the Monday immediately following Turkey Day is never the biggest of the season, according to search-and-affiliate-marketing firm DoubleClick Performics. Moreover, an early Thanksgiving and a Tuesday Christmas this year mean there will be five Cyber Mondays, with the fourth likely to be the biggest, the company said.
And the holiday-shop-at-work trend is showing no signs of slowing down.
According to Shop.org, 54.5% of office workers with Internet access, or 68.5 million people, plan to do some holiday shopping online at work this year, up from 50.7% in 2006, and 44.7% in 2005.
The types of promotions online retailers plan to lure these shoppers are fairly standard. According to Shop.org, 32% of online retailers plan to e-mail special offers, 29.9% plan to offer specific deals on their sites, 28.9% plan one-day sales and 24.7% will offer free shipping.
Retailers this year are facing a somewhat challenging holiday shopping season. The NRF in September predicted holiday sales to grow 4% this year, slightly lower than the 10-year average of 4.8%, and the slowest rate of growth since 2002 when holiday sales rose 1.3%.
However, an unseasonably warm October resulted in retail sales failing to meet most forecasts and some fairly dismal reports from the nation’s largest retailers.
