Roundup of Black Friday and Cyber Monday Coverage

[mandy]

So-called "Black Friday," the day after the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, is the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season, and this year online retailers saw traffic surge with shoppers spending over 4/5ths of a billion dollars on Thursday and Friday alone. According to comScore, shoppers plunked down $272 million online on Thursday, and $531 million on Friday -- an increase of 29% and 22%, respectively, over the same days last year.

IDG reports that price comparison sites also claimed a huge increase in traffic over the 2006 holiday shopping kick-off. PriceGrabber saw referral traffic up a reported 47%, while Shopping.com watched its referrals increase 61%...

full article: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/onl...g_2007.php

The numbers are in for Black Friday holiday shopping, and once again web sites specializing in consumer electronics showed the biggest surge. Overall, traffic to e-commerce sites was up 10 percent over last year to 21.2 million unique visitors...

full article: http://mashable.com/2007/11/26/black-fri...-shopping/

Many forecasts called for a tepid holiday shopping season. The National Retail Federation, for example, has forecast the smallest sales gain in five years.

But at least on “Black Friday” consumers seemed to come out to shop, though various surveys offer mixed views.

The NRF’s Black Friday weekend survey showed a 4.8 percent increase in  store traffic, though in keeping with the mixed messages coming out of the weekend, it also showed a 3.5 percent decline in spending by the average customer.

SpendingPulse, meanwhile estimated total spending rose 4.5 percent to 5.5 percent over last year for the Friday-Sunday period.

Discounters were the store of choice for most shoppers...

full article: http://blogs.reuters.com/shop-talk/2007/...y-weekend/

If your virtual cash register is ringing up sales faster than you can say, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Cyber Monday," — and even if it's not — brace yourself for more Monday merry-making to come.

Cyber Monday is a sales phenomenon that keeps on giving the whole month of December, according to data by DoubleClick Performics, the performance marketing division of DoubleClick Inc.

"The peaks and valleys of consumer shopping behavior during the holidays are filled with misconception among marketers and the general business community. The National Retail Federation originally coined the term Cyber Monday for the Monday following Thanksgiving.

"This helped the industry understand that, while Black Friday is the biggest offline shopping day of the year, the following Monday brought much greater online sales volume, but they only scratched the surface with this finding. It's more than just one Monday; it's a Cyber Monday phenomenon, and the Monday following Thanksgiving tends to pale in comparison to the others that follow,"...

full article: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/news/rese...hp/3712826

Today comScore released an update of holiday season e-commerce spending covering the first 23 days (Nov. 1 - 23) of the 2007 holiday season/ . More than $9.3 billion has been spent online during the season to-date, marking a 17% gain versus the corresponding days last year. Online retail spending was strong on both Thanksgiving Day (up 29% to $272 million) and Black Friday (up 22% to $531 million), outpacing the season-to-date growth rate.


ComScore projects Cyber Monday sales of $700 million, easily outpacing the total of $608 million last year...

full article: http://publications.mediapost.com/index....leHomePage&art_aid=71500

"It's clear that consumers are increasingly turning to the Internet to make their holiday purchases," said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. "Online spending on Black Friday has historically represented an early indicator of how the rest of the season will shake out."

Cyber Monday, he added, "will provide an even clearer indication of what lies ahead for the rest of the season."
Drawn by Discounts?

Other research firms and e-commerce players were reporting similar surges in traffic. An estimated 72 million U.S. consumers will venture online on Monday, a 61 percent increase over 2006 numbers, said Shop.org, the Web arm of the National Retail Federation. Almost a third of all adults -- 31.9 percent -- will spend some time shopping on the Web, the group's survey said...

full article: http://ecommercetimes.com/story/E-Tailer...60464.html

[mandy]

IR report on Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales:

It’s way too soon to pop the champagne corks, but early indications are that the online holiday shopping season is off to a strong start. Analysts note, however, that retailers, online and off, pushed promotions aggressively over the past few days, raising questions whether the strong sales can be sustained...

E-commerce analysts cautioned against reading too much into the early results. “So far, so good,” says Sucharita Mulpuru of Forrester Research. “It sounded like yesterday was a really, really strong day. But part of the reason the numbers were as strong as they were was the aggressive discounting. The strength of the season will depend on whether the momentum is maintained regardless of discounting in the coming weeks.”...

full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=24545