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Is Your Online Business prepared for Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the United States is historically one of the busiest retail shopping days of the year. Retailers will open early and usually offer significant discounts. The origin of the name, Black Friday comes from the retailer’s shift to prosperity during the holiday season. Back in the day when accounting records were kept by hand, red ink indicated financial loss while black ink indicated profit.
Data indicates people also are excited about Cyber Monday. The term Cyber Monday refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday (November 30, this year). It symbolizes a busy day for online retailers. The premise was that consumers would return to their offices after the Black Friday weekend, making purchases online they were not able to complete in stores.
The term Cyber Monday was coined by Shop.org.
According to comScore, Black Friday of ‘2008 was not nearly as profitable as anticipated. This report indicated that e-commerce sales were $534 million, but that was only a single percent increase over the previous year 2007. What many online retailers actually walked away with on Black Friday in 2008 was a big letdown.
In December 2008, comScore released its Cyber Monday data. The report suggested online retail sales for Cyber Monday in 2008 were up 15 percent over 2007. It should be noted – this data also showed the average dollars spent per buyer declined by five percent, due to the attractive prices offered by a number of large online retailers.
Will Black Friday and Cyber Monday experience a big boom in 2009?
The National Retail Federation (NRF) released its 2009 holiday forecast. In the report, NRF projected that we would see holiday retail sales decline by one percent this year to $437.6 billion. This data is based on expectations for the full months of November and December, a total of 55 shopping days.
What does all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday buzz mean for small online retail stores? You should expect more website traffic than usual during this period in November and possibly more sales when compared to any other days in November.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday mean your holiday selling season is here!
It makes perfect sense for small online retailers to start their holiday shopping promotions – this should include email marketing promotions. This will help you kick off the holiday shopping season for your customers and let you take advantage of the increased shopping traffic in November and December.
According to a survey conducted by ISACA, the IT governance association, 63% of people of all ages say they shop online during the holiday season from their workplace computers.
CareerBuilder says employers lost 580 million in productivity on Cyber Monday in 2008. They estimate 43% of those planning to shop from work on Cyber Monday will spend at least one hour doing so, and 23% said they shop two hours or more from their workplace computer.
This is why Black Friday and Cyber Monday is essential to your business even if you do not see direct sales from it. It is a chance for you to get your brand recognized; highlight special holiday deals; mention lower-priced items when possible; stress the ease and convenience online shopping offers; and most importantly remain in the mind of your shoppers.
For retailers, it seems, the internet continues to be an incredibly powerful way to market and sell their products. Companies have come to understand that, even for those individuals who prefer to purchase their gifts in stores, the internet can still be a great tool. Online retailers generally offer information along with high-resolution images of their products so that consumers can research them and make purchasing decisions before heading out to shop.
*Did You Know – According to comScore in 2007, on Black Friday consumers spent $430 million, on Cyber Monday they spent $610 million.
