Happy Cyber Monday! The preliminary numbers are in for the past three to four days - the official kick off of the holiday shopping season.
Online sales this year increased by 17.4% on Thanksgiving Day and by 20.7% on Black Friday compared to last year, according to IBM’s Digital Analytics Benchmark Trends Report.
Saturday's report from retail technology company ShopperTrak finds consumers spent '$11.2 billion at stores across the U.S, down 1.8% from last year's total, while Black Friday foot traffic this year rose 3.5 percent to 307.7 million store visits.'
In addition, Bloomberg reports info from ShopperTrak and ComScore that indicates 'sales on the day after the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. fell 1.8 percent from last year to $11.2 billion, compared to a 6.6 percent gain a year earlier, while online shopping on Black Friday rose 26 percent to exceed $1 billion for the first time.
In summary, to date research indicates during the holiday shopping kick off that:
- Online and mobile shopping is up.
- Black Friday foot traffic is up.
- Brick and mortar sales are slightly down.
Retailers have begun to shift their marketing focus for the beginning of the holiday shopping season and consumers are following suit.
The official start of the holiday shopping season previously launched the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday), is shifting. Retailers are now turning the holiday shopping kick off season into a week long, or five day event, running from the day before Thanksgiving, on Thanksgiving, all the way through Cyber Monday.
And the focus is not only on driving consumers to brick and mortar stores, but encouraging online and mobile shopping as well.
Retailers are providing a wide variety of levels of deals and promotions, changing them throughout the five days to keep consumer interest focused, and consumers are grabbing up the deals in the most convenient ways possible to them, by visiting stores, or shopping online, or via mobile devices.
While Black Friday is still an important day in retail, you can help your pet business compete during this busy season by providing a wide variety of deals throughout the launch and five week long holiday shopping season this year.
By promoting profusely all the different types of deals you are offering through a wide variety of marketing avenues, you will keep in front of customers and prospective customers to help you stand out from the crowd.
If you are a retailer, promote, promote, promote - deals in your store and deals online. And if you are a manufacturer, share information about how your retailers are promoting your products.
Be creative, think out of the box, stand out the best and most effective way possible to keep the interest of your customers and potential customers.
There is still time to get your marketing strategy, tactics and plan together for the holidays. Contact us for more information about how Pawsible Marketing can help improve your holiday sales and marketing.
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