Black Friday – Cyber Monday
by DT - December 11th, 2006 5:42 pm
The mass media went their usual degree of retail-crazy this year around Thanksgiving, and the trade jargon phrase of “Black Friday†gained a lot of general currency.
Previously uninformed readers and viewers (if there were any left) had the “black†part explained to them as meaning nothing dark or bad, but representing the day after Thanksgiving when retailers accounts might move from negative red to positive black ink. And the unambiguous “Cyber Monday†tag was also circulated as the new (sort-of) name for the return-to-work day after the holiday when cubicle drones were presumed to start online shopping en masse, using their employers’ computers.
Well, how did it work out in practice? And in particular, how did either day impact on online sales? Almost a week later it’s still not totally clear. Both “special†days saw increased traffic and sales online, according to several reports, and the measuring agency Hitwise even threw Thanksgiving Day into the mix, observing a spike in online market share on the very day when people are meant to be either busy cooking or comatose after the turkey.
Research firm comScore Networks assessed e-commerce spending on Cyber Monday at $608 million, a 26 percent hike over last year, and the company’s chief assessor, Chairman Gian Fulgoni, waxed extra-enthusiastic, saying,
“It’s the highest spending day ever recorded online. That said, we fully expect during the week of December 12 that the record will be eclipsed.”
By comparison, comScore found online retail spending on Black Friday reached $434 million, a 42 percent increase over last year’s sales. To date, total online retail excluding travel for the first 27 days in November comes to $9.48 billion, which accounts for a 24 percent increase over corresponding days in 2005.
Yet online still accounts for a relatively small chunk of holiday sales. “The online channel this season will represent about 7 percent of everything consumers spend,” Fulgoni said. “Offline is far bigger, but it’s not growing anywhere near the rate of the online channel.” Overall, comScore expects the holiday season to bring in $24 billion in online sales, a 24 percent increase from last year.
Nielsen//NetRatings, which trumpeted “Black Friday Trumps Cyber Monday” in a recent data release, found that unique visitors surfing from home the day after Thanksgiving were 19.2 million, compared to at-work uniques of 16.1 million the following Monday. However, when both home and work audiences are combined, Cyber Monday saw close to 30 million visitors, the most unique visitors to the Nielsen//NetRatings Holiday eShopping Index. Unique visitors on Black Friday totaled 27 million.
Black Friday beats Cyber Monday in terms of increase over last year, boasting 13 percent growth in unique visitors over last year, compared with Cyber Monday’s 7 percent. Incidentally, Thanksgiving Day itself showed 24 percent growth over 2005, and Sunday surfing to sites in the eShopping Index observed a 25 percent increase.
The blip on Thanksgiving Day was noticed by Hitwise. The Hitwise Retail 100 Index was up 13.3 percent this past Monday, but compared to Thanksgiving Day, Cyber Monday’s market share of traffic was down 33.87 percent; and Black Friday traffic was down 26.29 percent compared to the day before, when everyone was apparently surfing while not checking the turkey or watching football.
Such are the (not entirely predictable) changes in the American way of buying
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