Part I – Know Your Dates!
Retailers spend the entire year preparing for the holiday shopping season, planning for the next one as soon as one has finished – and rightfully so. According to the National Retail Federation, holiday sales encompass 20-40% of annual revenue for many retailers, making it the most profitable time of the year. Last year, online holiday sales saw a 15% increase over 2010, and Shop.org asserts that growth will continue this year at 12%. Traditionally, Halloween and Christmas were key shopping periods to cater to; however, with retail encompassing online and mobile channels holiday shopping takes on a far grander scale. Many key shopping days are entirely online-based, not only catering to digital ‘holidays’, but also international holidays that people have become exposed to via the internet. The first step towards capitalizing on big revenues from these shopping days is to know when exactly they are, so you know exactly how to prepare.
Thanksgiving – November 22, 2012
The US Thanksgiving now marks the official start of the holiday season, and is an extremely important opportunity for e-retailers to capitalize on given that brick and mortar stores are closed. comScore reported that Thanksgiving Day online sales generated an estimated $550 million – up 39% over 2010, compared to a 25% increase from 2009 to 2010, indicating a greater willingness to shop on the holiday. Thanksgiving 2011 showed 15.2% of eCommerce traffic was mobile, which contributed to 11.09% of purchases. Peak sales times were 11am, and then 6pm through to 10pm – before and after Thanksgiving Dinner preparation and celebration.
Black Friday – November 23, 2012
For many years, Black Friday has represented mayhem and madness at retail outlets as people line up for hours the day after Thanksgiving for huge sales on the traditional start of the holiday shopping season. However, eCommerce and mobile commerce has allowed Thanksgiving to take the ‘official start’ title, and bring a little more calm to Black Friday with retailers featuring great deals online.
Black Friday sales in 2011 showed a 6.6% increase over 2010, compared to 2010’s meager 0.3% increase over 2009; the significant growth in sales is likely attributable to the fact that the Black Friday frenzy has made its way south of the border, with Canadian retailers offering steep discounts of their own. This was further reflected by a 24.3% jump in online sales, while 9.8% of overall Black Friday sales were mobile.
Cyber Monday – November 26, 2012
Cyber Monday 2011 was the single largest online shopping day in history, generating over $1.25 billion in sales. As with Black Friday, the 33% increase in online sales can likely be attributed to the growing popularity of Cyber Monday perpetuating outside of the US and into Canada. Mobile sales paled in comparison to Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, but still contributed to 6.6% of overall sales – a number that is expected to increase significantly in 2012 as many retailers perfect their mobile sites and apps, as well as integrate with mobile payment solutions.
The phenomenal spike in sales did not come without setbacks, however. Many e-retailers experienced slow load-times, and even outages while trying to accommodate increased traffic. AnnTaylor.com suffered an outage on Cyber Monday, while American Eagle’s AE.com saw a total of 8 hours of downtime from Black Friday through to Cyber Monday.
Last year, OrderDynamics retailers processed 93% more orders over 2010, and reported generating double, and triple their average revenue, making the scalability of the OrderDynamics On-Demand Commerce Platform an extremely important asset during the coming holiday season. In the aftermath of last year’s Black Friday through Cyber Monday shopping weekend, OrderDynamics’ Co-Founder and On-Demand Platform Architect, Steven Berkovitz, stated “We maintain significant on-demand capacity in our SaaS infrastructure to protect merchants against inevitable spikes. Operating a single version of our software allows us to make performance enhancements to our core platform which immediately benefits all of our clients without needing to make costly customizations.”
Green Monday – December 12, 2012
Green Monday is another online retail term originally coined by eBay in a 2007 holiday marketing campaign as their highest sales day in December. Having been beat by Cyber Monday for 3 years, consecutively, now it is specifically known as the second Monday in December, or the Monday no less than 10 days away from Christmas, and one of the last days on which online purchases can be delivered in time for Christmas with standard shipping. While Green Monday is relatively unknown, it’s popularity has grown by having been the third most profitable online shopping day last year, raking in $1.1 billion – a 19% increase over 2010. Green Monday also kicks off the busiest shopping week of the year, accommodating last minute holiday shoppers.
Free Shipping Day – December 17, 2012
Previously known as Free Shipping Friday, this Green Monday rival has been moved to a Monday for the first time this year – the last Monday before Christmas. Free Shipping Day caters to the ultimate procrastinators, wherein expedited shipping is offered for free by participating retailers to ensure arrival by Christmas Eve. Last year, 2600 online retailers signed up to offer free shipping on FreeShipping.org, generating $1.07 billion in revenue and claiming the title of 6th heaviest online shopping day of the 2011 holiday season. FreeShipping.org founder, Luke Knowles, expects just as many retailers to participate this year.
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Don't forget to read the other parts of the 2012 OrderDynamics Retail Holiday Guide:
- Part I - Know Your Dates
- Part II - Website Checklist
- Part III - Social Media for the Holidays
- Part IV - Holiday Emails
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