Online Retailers Gear Up For 'Cyber Monday'

[mandy]

Thanksgiving weekend may mark the traditional beginning of the retail shopping season, but Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, is fast becoming one of the biggest online shopping days in the year.

"On Cyber Monday, consumers set their sights on surfing for holiday gifts and shopping online," Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org, said in the report. "This year, online retailers will be capitalizing on the increased traffic by offering special promotions and discounts."

full article: http://www.techweb.com/wire/ebiz/1744008...0CJUMEKJVN

E-retailers will offer special promotions on the Monday after Thanksgiving

In anticipation of a surge in sales on Cyber Monday—...the Monday after Thanksgiving—43% of online merchants are planning to offer special promotions and discounts on that day...

In addition, 36% of retailers in the study said they plan to offer special promotions and sales on Thanksgiving Day, with some planning to offer their Friday-after-Thanksgiving discounts a day early on their web sites.

full article:  http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=16807

[valleygirl]

Last year Thanksgiving day and the day after Christmas were my busiest days.

[mandy]

Another Cyber Monday article:

The good news for online shoppers this year, is that “Cyber Monday” is becoming the Web shopping equivalent to “Black Friday” when retailers launch major sales and discounts to drive traffic, analysts said

...“Most people who shop online do it at work, not at home,” despite rising rates of high-speed home Internet connections,.

full article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10204961/

[maggie777]

I'm offering a 25% discount.

[bargainbloodhound]

We're having a 4-day 20% off sale and one of those days is Monday. 

[valleygirl]

Black Friday was better than Cyber Monday for me this year.

[iron_chick]

Cyber Monday rocked for me!    I sold a bunch of stuff on eBay but I also had strong (for me) website sales, including my largest web site order to date!!    My strongest days for the long holiday weekend were Wednesday, Thursday, and Monday!! 

[regic]

Cyber Monday is not living up to its hype -- at least in terms of visits to leading online shopping sites.

The Monday after Thanksgiving received the least amount of online visitor traffic to key shopping sites in the Nov. 24-28 period, market researcher Hitwise said yesterday...

... media reports yesterday claim that that some retailers reported a shopping surge on Cyber Monday. But a perusal of Nielsen//NetRatings’ traffic data shows that it was mostly Internet-only merchants that attracted heavier traffic when compared with multichannel retailers...

Yes, there is a slight divergence on Cyber Monday. Nielsen//NetRatings, for instance, said eBay, at 11.67 million shoppers, was the No. 1 most visited shopping site on Cyber Monday. Ebay didn’t even make it on the Hitwise top 15 list....

full article: http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot...e_id=34931

Cyber Monday "is actually taking place," said Tom Burke, vice president of BarnesandNoble.com, which, along with Staples, said sales on Monday were the biggest this holiday season."

Holiday traffic peaked on Monday, reaching 27.7 million visits, compared with 23.9 million on Friday, and 21 million on Saturday and Sunday, Nielsen Net Ratings, a marketing research firm, found.

The robust start to the online shopping season buoyed retailers, many of which are still fretting over a lackluster weekend in their brick and mortar stores...

full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/30/techno...cyber.html

[xppman]

I think Cyber Monday is just more hype too.
Just like Black Friday.
IMO Black Friday is how the retailers attract the flock and move stock so
they can restock at least two more times before Xmas. and it has worked
traditionally for years but I'm sure I'm not alone when I said:
No way I'm going out in that mess.

I'm sure a lot of folks went out, fought the crowds, traffic, long lines
and all the BS associated with tons of people all grabbing for the same discounted stuff.
I even know a few that did. My son's bud, his dad and his boss stood in line at Best Buy
from 10 o clock Thursday night till they opened Friday morning to get some a great deals on some flat screen computer monitors and stuff. They bought like six monitors and a few e machines deeply discounted.

They plan on reselling them at their B&M computer shop for 3 times what they paid at Best Buy
and I'm sure they will get it too.

I remember articles I read about people smacking each other around
in recent years over merchandise sales on Black Friday at the BIG retailers.
I'd be one of them if some rude fool was trying to snatch the stuff out my
cart when I turned my back or cutting me off in traffic.

As far as Cyber Monday: No biggie for me. We made some sales
but to be honest I was a bit disappointed in the low volume for this so called BIG event day.

I sold a few items on ebay Friday but ebay and it's traffic really does suck IMO.
I think more have opted out of ebay and have decided to go elsewhere.
The  is NOT working on many me thinks.

(Which I'm sorry to say to any of you who still only use the bay and hope you do well too).. 

Of course Tuesday and so far today are already turning out to be far better than Monday was
for website sales and I believe that even more will come our way in the next week or so.
The momentum seems to be kicking in. Time will only tell.

We all must remember that this is the last day of the month and anyone who went out and spent their wad they had stashed on Friday at the B&Ms may have depleted their stashed funds until next payday. Oh maybe like by the end of this week and this weekend. Things might really kick a$$ for many of  us then.

Overall I guess I'm happy so far and should have NEVER expect what the market
gurus were hyping to be anything more than just that and
actually I would rather NOT have sales hit ALL on one day.

To much pressure to put on myself and my shipping carriers.

My carriers would NEVER be able to fit 20 of my items at one time I sell in their vehicles
and I wont put them through that either. 5 or six a day at most.
They have already had to come back before, due to the bulk size of my shipments. :

Anyway happy trading for all.
I hope everyone makes a ton of $$$ and I
hope most of you make IT, without the middle man feebay taking a cut from you too.

[bargainbloodhound]

Cyber Monday wasn't our best day of the weekend either sales or visitor wise. 

---------------------------------

Hitwise ranked Amazon #1 on Monday and Nielsen ranked eBay #1.  The Amazon/eBay numbers really don't reveal much about which site had the most buyers on Monday.  Since eBay has a billion times more sellers (the billion figure is correct.  I registered a few million more posting IDs  :twistedevil: ) than Amazon, I'm wondering what percentage of the 11.5 million eBay visitors Nielsen reported were sellers who had heard about Cyber Monday and were  checking their listings every 10 minutes for bids.

----------------------------------------------------

What comes loud and clear from the Hitwise listing -- and even Nielsen//NetRatings’ tracking -- is the growing pre-eminence of bricks-and-mortar retailers in categories that sell well online -- consumer electronics and computer hardware. A multichannel presence, in-store pick-up, easy returns and free shipping incentives help.

It’s only a matter of time before Walmart.com surpasses Amazon for shoppers seeking new products

When I predicted this would happen 7 years ago on one my sites, I immediately got deluged with a huge numberof hate emails from Amazon shareholders. 

The "growing pre-eminence of bricks-and-mortar retailers" really isn't good news for any of the "mom-and-pop" sellers who escaped to the Internet because it provided a more level playing field than the local shopping mall.  As time goes by I think any remaining "level playing field" advantages the Internet provides small sellers will all but disappear as the online and offline retail worlds become more interdependent on each other and the retailers with the biggest pocketbooks stomp on their online competitors just as they have done in the offline world.