We have more insights to share from our recent webinar, but in the spirit of the holiday shopping season we thought it appropriate to take a
moment to comment on the rise in sales for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
This was a banner weekend for retailers. According to the National Retail Federation:
- 226 million shoppers were in stores over the weekend.
- They spend $452.4 billion
- They also spent an average of 9.3 percent more over the weekend this year than last year.
The experts are saying that a lot of this activity has to do with pent-up demand from a public tired of the recession, and because most retailers run their best deals for the holidays. According to a Miami field report from Retail Systems Research, stores were open even earlier this year and there were shoppers everywhere; all the big box stores along Biscayne Boulevard were jammed before midnight on Black Friday Eve, with the exception of those like Bed, Bath, & Beyond that didn’t have holiday special promotions. Clearly consumers are looking for bargains this year.
However, Cyber Monday outsold Black Friday. Those looking to beat the shopping crowds have turned to the web for bargains and there was a
boom in online sales. According to a report from IBM Benchmark, online sales were up over 33 percent over last year, and the average online purchase price of $198.26; 2.6 percent higher than last year. Here are some other interesting facts from the IBM report:
- Of all cybershoppers, 1 percent used a mobile device, up 3.9 percent over Cyber Monday 2010
- 6.6 percent of all Cyber Monday purchases were made from mobile devices.
- The Apple iPad generated the largest number of online retails sales.
- Online shopping peaked around 2:00 p.m. ET, the time when most of the retail stores were at their peak as well.
What this highlights is that shoppers are more comfortable than ever with online purchases. This is only the sixth year the experts have
identified “Cyber Monday” as a shopping phenomena and the retail industry has seen a steady increase year over year.
It also points to the rise in the use of handheld devices for shopping. Not only are shoppers going online, but they are using handheld devices for simplicity. This even could mean that some shoppers are going to the retail outlet and, seeing the long checkout line to purchase they can see on the store shelf, they pull out their smart phone or iPad and buy the same product online right then and there.
This poses new challenges for retailers. Clearly, stocking strategies need to be more precise, and merchandising strategies need to find new ways to effectively blend the in-store and online shopping experience. More users are turning online for their shopping, and a lot of them are using mobile devices to make those purchases. Smart retailers will find a way to capitalize on the mobile revolution without sacrificing their in-store sales, or better yet, adjusting their in-store strategies to accommodate customers and the way they want to shop.
What all this will require is a new level of merchandising and point-of-sale intelligence beyond that most retailers are using today. It will require new insights, and new point-of-sale information driven by a new kind of analytics that demonstrate sales performance and customer preference both online and at the retail outlet. That’s why Groupsoft continues to refine GrMAP, our merchandising and assortment planning tool, and why we created GrAPPS to bring that same kind of assortment and merchandising planning power to handheld devices, like the iPad. The objective is to not only help retailers think like their customers, but to enable the same mobile tools so they can act like their customers as well.
