ANN ARBOR ? So, have you started your holiday shopping yet? If not, what are you waiting for? This past weekend was the traditional start of the Holiday shopping season and the stores were packed. If you weren?t one of people stampeding at Wal-Mart to buy their $400 laptops on Black Friday, you?ve missed your chance!
You can catch up this week, however. The Monday after Thanksgiving is now recognized as the start of the on-line shopping season. Shop.org, the e-commerce industry?s leading trade association, has branded it ?Cyber Monday? and the media has dutifully jumped on the bandwagon. In the past week we?ve seen pieces on Cyber Monday from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, CNN, the Today Show, and nearly everyone else with five minutes or five column inches to fill. Personally, I think the term is a little dated. To me ?Cyber Monday? sounds like the hangover you have after a long weekend spent in a chat room of ill repute.
One thing you should know is that the Monday after Thanksgiving isn?t really the largest online shopping day for anyone, at least not for any merchant I?m aware of. Most retailers have their biggest sales days towards the beginning of the second week of December. Traditional gifting companies, like Godiva and 1-800-FLOWERS, will have their best days closer to Christmas itself. Multi-channel retailers, like Best Buy and Sears, will do a lot of business right up to December 23rd because they can take orders online for you to pick up in the store.
But nearly every retailer ranks Cyber Monday as its second or third busiest day and so, in the aggregate, that day is one of the single largest online shopping days of the year. It?s pretty obvious why if you think about it. Most people have just spent the weekend shopping in the malls looking for bargain gifts for Uncle Ted. Three days of that is about all anyone can tolerate. On Monday they?re back at work, in front of a high-speed Internet connection, so it?s natural that they?ll look to see what gift ideas they can find online. The boss just hopes it?s during the lunch break. (Actually, only about 10 percent of online-shopping-at-work takes place during the lunch hour. So much for America?s productivity gains.)
Interestingly, online shopping isn?t really that strong for the rest of the week after Cyber Monday. There?s a lot of time spent researching products online that week but comparatively fewer actual purchases. The big dollars don?t start rolling in until the first or second week of December. In fact, comScore Networks, an industry research group, reports that even the week immediately before Christmas has better sales online than the week immediately following Thanksgiving. That?s the power of free shipping promotions at work.
So far the online holiday season seems to be going according to earlier projections. comScore reports that sales for the week just ended were up 22 percent from the same period a year ago. Another research group, Hitwise, reports a 20 percent increase. Retailers have started using more promotions, such as free gift with purchase or free shipping for orders over $100, earlier than normal. Many merchants have used special promotions for a limited time around the Thanksgiving holiday which will end later this week (but we?re sure to see them again as Christmas approaches).
The most popular items online this Holiday continue to be electronics, and Apple seems like the big winner again. Its iPod Nano was a huge hit all across the Web, selling out at many locations. This interest in all-things-pluggable led to huge traffic spikes at sites like BestBuy.com and CircuitCity.com, both of whom experienced major site outages this past weekend because they couldn?t handle all the business.
Microsoft?s new Xbox 360 was the hottest item of all, though, and was nearly impossible to find online. All units were sold after a major national launch at midnight Tuesday last week but that didn?t stop eager video game mavens from searching all across the Net to find any that might still be available. A thriving market for them exists on eBay, where they go for two to four times the $399.99 retail price. But be on the lookout for scam artists. A number of people have reported paying more than $1,000 on eBay for what turned out to be an empty box.
The other notable event this past weekend was that, for the first time, more people visited Walmart.com than Amazon.com. Wal-Mart?s traffic nearly doubled from last year while Amazon?s grew only 20 percent (according to Hitwise). This is primarily driven by the trend of consumers visiting multi-channel retailers? sites (like Wal-mart, Sears, and Target) to plan their Black Friday shopping strategy. Amazon.com will return as the traffic leader this week. And in case you worry about the Big Box retailers will completely take over the Net, you?ll be happy to hear that eBay.com still had twice as much traffic as Walmart.com and Amazon.com combined.
You may be getting a used lunch box for Christmas! Don?t ruin the surprise!
This column was written by David Fry, founder of Fry Inc. of Ann Arbor, which has been designing, developing, and managing the world’s most respected and recognized eBusiness brands, applications, and systems since 1994. For more information, click on Fry.Com
