Cyber Monday: Kickstart to Christmas?

Friday, December 5th, 2008 by Guest

Cyber Monday: Kickstart to Christmas?

By Peter Young

The specter of a credit crunch/recession has been looming large both in the US and the UK over the last year or so, with resulting bottom lines significantly affected. For many retailers this has seen Christmas come later than in previous years, with many retailers only starting to see the increases in traffic normally associated with the festive time of year.

However according to some research on both sides of the pond, things are starting to look a little brighter. A recent report by Comscore suggested Cyber Monday became the second heaviest online spending day in history (eclipsed only be that of Green Monday, December 10th 2007). For those wondering what all these days are, here’s the overview

The term Cyber Monday refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday, the ceremonial kick-off of the holiday online shopping season in the United States between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. [1] Whereas Black Friday is associated with traditional brick-and-mortar stores, “Cyber Monday” symbolizes a busy day for online retailers.

Wikipedia

A number of other interest points were observed:

Spend overall between November 1st – December 1st was down 2% in comparison to 2007.
Pre-Thanksgiving sales were down 4% on 2007 figures
However figures post thanksgiving were up significantly – 12% – with the weekend prior to Cyber Monday seeing a 19% increase in sales.

The decline of in-store foot traffic will come as the biggest surprise to many people. Whilst there was a significant increase in the post Black Friday rush, store traffic fell by 19%–the biggest three-day drop since Comscore began tracking these figures.

Traditional online behemoths such as Amazon, eBay and Walmart consolidated their positions, despite some analysts warning that bricks-and-mortar retailer discounts could affect their sales significantly.

Whilst Cyber Monday is rarely the biggest spending day during the festive period–which tends to occur later in December–Comscore highlighted that the solid online spending showing for the first Monday of the traditional holiday shopping season was an encouraging sign for retailers.

Only time will tell if that is true…

Peter Young is a UK SEO who contributes regularly to the Holistic Search site whilst working as SEO Manager at MediaVest in Manchester, England.

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11 comments on “Cyber Monday: Kickstart to Christmas?”

SeoBrain Says:

December 5th, 2008 at 12:44 am

I hope it will be nice christmas this year, global economic crissis give very big effect with all customer who want to buy something for christmas.

Iam affiliate from few big store like amazon and i see some decrease sales comparation to 2007.
Quentin - Women's Clothes Says:

December 5th, 2008 at 5:50 am

I’m finding sales really fluctuating from day to day. Last year it was pretty solid and you could roughly work out what was happening from day to day but this year it seems completly random.
George Nobles Says:

December 5th, 2008 at 6:35 am

For me the online shopping is the factor which reduce the number of people in markt place that’s why we feel that this christmas is not good for the shoppers.
Nicole Price Says:

December 5th, 2008 at 8:10 am

I hope that the optimism will translate into sales. Things need to look up fast.

Nicole Price’s last blog post..Offbeat Gift Ideas
Patrick Says:

December 5th, 2008 at 8:21 am

Cyber Monday is overrated. There were far more better deals on Black Friday and very few on Cyber Monday. Just another scheme to get people out and shop even though there aren’t any real deals to be found.

Patrick’s last blog post..Make Your Own Homeade Pesticides and Repellants
Kenney Says:

December 6th, 2008 at 8:24 pm

I was wondering how Cyber Monday sales were. I hadn’t seen any numbers till now. That’s good to see these types of increases and success. Especially in a down economy.
Busby SEO Says:

December 7th, 2008 at 4:35 am

@Nicole: I hope that too, and hope my affiliate store site running well again

Busby SEO’s last blog post..By: Chalicious
Jason Kuiper Says:

December 7th, 2008 at 9:40 pm

Yeah, We had a huge increase in page hits on Black Monday. It seems like there were a lot of lookers, but not many buyers.
Goran Web Design Says:

December 8th, 2008 at 2:41 am

hmmm.. does this mean that eventually going christmas shopping in stores won’t be quite the nightmare it currently is? Or will shopping in store be completely abolished?
Jacques Seoman Says:

December 8th, 2008 at 9:45 am

Expect to see more and more being spent online, with traditional retailers facing a losing battle.
Paid Search Ends 2008 On a Positive Note - Up 12% Says:

January 13th, 2009 at 8:15 am

[...] Sales reports around the start of the holiday period were mixed, preThanksgiving down 4%, and Cyber Monday only up 1%. It’s not surprising then that December’s paid search growth was only 14%, as retailers remained wary about spending. [...]