Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: broadband, Cyber Monday, e-commerce, holiday shopping
Cyber Monday wasn’t very cyber this year, according to this Wall Street Journal blog entry. Should online retailers panic? No, because Cyber Monday is a fiction and remains so. It’s never been the busiest online shopping day (the busiest is usually the last few days before Christmas when you can still count on getting something shipped in time), and I never bought the premise that lots of people are going to shop online the Monday after Thanksgiving because they have a broadband connection at work.
The broadband argument may have made sense a few years ago, but with home broadband penetration now at 75% of American Adult internet users we aren’t likely to see much of a bump. Also in a down economy, people may think twice about shopping when they are supposed to be working.
True, retailers ran some huge Cyber Monday discounts and promotions, and most are probably a bit disappointed, but I think the whole strategy needs a rethink. I suspect the Cyber Monday promotional blasts got lost in the noise of store-focused Thanksgiving advertising, resulting in a classic example of failing to have things both ways. You can’t drive shoppers into stores on Sunday and expect them to flock to the web on Monday. I think it would make more sense to start the holiday online promotions, especially free shipping, a week or two before Thanksgiving with a focus on improving usability and user experience so that shoppers keep coming back day after day.
Update: another Wall Street Journal article claims that Cyber Monday sales are up 15% from last year, according to data from comScore which also says that overall online holiday spending is still down 2%. Big question of course is how much discounting went on to drive traffic, but if comScore is right then obviously the marketing blitz worked. Don’t get me wrong: I think the idea of kick starting online holiday shopping is great, but I still think it would make more sense to start earlier, especially since the gifts have to be delivered.
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Starbucks has their rewards card, Apple has apple care, and many car dealers offer free oil changes for life. When are retailers going to offer an online rewards system that rewards you like a credit card rewards program. With each transaction you get points that you can log into their site and track points and redeem them.
Comment by tara December 3, 2008 @ 9:50 am[...] Cyber Monday is still not so cyber (or maybe it is?) [...]
Pingback by Chase Paymentech: Cyber Monday Average Order Down 12% « Experience Architecture Journal December 8, 2008 @ 12:29 pmCyber Monday is for those that missed opportunities on Black Friday and the following weekend. This year they all turned out on friday.
Comment by tara December 8, 2008 @ 2:01 pmIt should be called Cyber Weekend-Deal Extension Monday.