Did
you skip the lines on Black Friday? There's still Cyber Monday -- and analysts
are expecting an abundance of deals to bring in record online sales this year.
Andrew
Lipsman, an industry analyst at data tracking firm ComScore, said sales for the
one-day shopping event are projected to hit a record $1.2 billion this year.
Almost
every major retailer plans on taking advantage of the hottest day to shop
online. According to the Shop.org's eHoliday survey, eight out of 10 online
retailers will offer promotions on Cyber Monday.
A
survey by comparison shopping site PriceGrabber found that 39% of consumers who
planned to shop over the four-day Thanksgiving weekend said they intended to do
so on Cyber Monday. That's up 2 percentage points from last year.
Does Cyber Monday really save you money? Cyber
Monday can get you to Hawaii Shoppers deal hunting on Cyber Monday FBI cracking
down on Cyber Monday scams
It's
a trend analysts are calling "couch commerce" -- more people want to
spend money online from the comfort of their homes rather than head out to the
shops.
Lelah
Manz, chief strategist of commerce at Akamai, cited the rise of tablet
computers in the last year as a major game-changer in e-commerce.
"If
you think about when the concept of Cyber Monday was first born, it was a time
when people had dial-up access at home -- it was the office place or the
workplace where they could access sites," Manz said. "Now everyone
has broadband access. People have tablets, they're able to get online earlier
and at home, and retailers are trying to capture that mind share."
According
to an IBM Coremetrics report, 15% of web traffic in the U.S. in November will
stem from smart phones and tablets rather than PC's. In order to tap into that
traffic, retailers are rolling out the deals early this year, said Manz.
As
valuable ad space is snatched up by major retailers, mid-sized retailers are
leaking deals ahead of Cyber Monday to get their place in the spotlight too,
said Graham Jones, general manager of PriceGrabber.
"What
we saw last year -- a lot of the medium size retailers, they didn't get in
front of the consumers, so they are the ones leaking the deals earlier,"
Jones said. "The earlier these deals are coming out is a function of the
retailers not wanting to be squeezed out of the limelight."
But
don't expect the online deals ahead of Cyber Monday to impact the big day.
According to a Shop.org survey, nearly 60% of workers will go online to shop
for holiday gifts at work, and many of the retailers are waiting for Monday to
push out some of the best promotions.
"Consumers
have come to expect the absolute best online holiday deals on Cyber
Monday," Pam Goodfellow, BIGresearch Consumer Insights Director, said in a
release. BIGresearch is a marketing research firm that conducts surveys for the
industry trade group National Retail Federation.
Online
companies are still placing big bets on Cyber Monday and taking steps to prep
for a day when online traffic is expected to spike. OpenSky, an online shopping
platform that offers products curated by various celebrities and influential
people -- from chef Tom Colicchio to fashion designer Cynthia Rowley -- has
been ramping up efforts to make sure the site runs smoothly.
"We're
expecting our biggest day ever - we have 10,000 new people joining OpenSky
every day and we expect sales to be five times our largest day," said
OpenSky Founder John Caplan. "We've made improvements to the site to make
it run faster. We've added additional shipping options, gift wrapping, customer
service staff and have all hands on deck from now through the holiday."
The
company also plans to announce lifestyle guru Martha Stewart as a curator on
the site - a move the six-month-old company hopes will boost interest in the
biggest online shopping day of the year.
By Laurie Segall, CNN Money
No comments:
Post a Comment