Marketing Pilgrim

There are certain things that you just know with regard to the internet space and one of those is the link between mobile and retail. They work well together. It makes sense. Going on gut, however, usually isn’t enough to convince others as to why you feel the need to increase spending on mobile efforts if you are a retailer.

So to make the point a little clearer that mobile and retail are becoming more joined at the hip than ever, we look to an eMarketer article that first highlights data from comScore which tells us that mobile users are truly relying on their devices to help them make purchase decisions.

Just like the push to generate holiday season commerce moves earlier and earlier each year so does the need for search engines to release their top searches for the past year despite 1/12th of that year still needing to be lived out.

Today is Bing’s turn. This video summarizes things well but lists are fun too so be sure to click through and look at some of the top searches from Bing for almost 11/12th’s of 2011.

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Another Black Friday is over and in the books and it looks like a good time was had by most.

IBM Coremetrics estimates a 24.3% increase in online sales over last year. As you can see from this chart, midnight was the magic hour with a nice spike over the last two years. This is likely due to the fact that many major chains made holiday prices effective at midnight online as well as in stores.

Sales peak in morning then slowly taper off, but still 2011 stayed well above the numbers from previous years with slight exceptions. (Can anyone account for that crazy early morning spike in 2009?)

Breaking it down by category, Department Store online sales were up 59%. Home Goods was up 48.8% and Apparel was up 47.2%. I like those numbers.

Yay! Today is Thanksgiving! FEED ME TURKEY!

Ok so I know what you are thinking, Um Joe, Thanksgiving was two days ago! But, you are wrong, and in this post I am going to prove it to you. Your thanksgiving may have been two days ago, but mine is today. You see, in my family we all have different places to go on Thanksgiving which means that usually we end up celebrating together on the Saturday after. I know it sounds crazy, but if you have ever met any of my family, you would see that crazy works for us!

Oh, and tomorrow is Thanksgiving as well! YAY More turkey! And the day after that, more Thanksgiving! In fact I am not going to stop with Thanksgiving! I am not sure how long the turkey will last, but I guess I can always buy more.

In the weeks leading up to Black Friday, it’s mostly the big brands that get all the attention. This year, though, American Express wants people to think about the small businesses, too. They’ve christened November 26, Small Business Saturday and the idea has truly taken hold.

The base of operations is the SBS Facebook page. Here, merchants can download signage, get e-marketing ideas and learn new ways to promote your business.

If you accept American Express, you can also promote a special offer through the Go Social program.

For their part, American Express is encouraging shoppers to go local with credits for qualifying purchases, a directory of local businesses by zip code and the Shop Small Facebook pledge.

So far 2,557,876 people have “liked” the page.

This year, Black Friday began earlier than usual with many chains opening on Thanksgiving and even more starting as early as midnight instead of the usual 4 or 6 am on Friday.

Toys R Us cashiers can take comfort in knowing they’re not the only ones slogging through the holiday madness. The folks at IBM Coremetrics are at their desks, turning out data as fast as they can.

So far, they say this Thanksgiving 2011sales were up 39% over last year and that it was a “banner shopping day” for online retailers.

Mobile traffic to online retail sites was also good with 15.2% of consumers using a device to log-on. That’s up 6.45% from 2010.

11.09% represents the number of folks using their mobile device to actually buy items and that’s also up from 4.25% in 2010.