“On Cyber Monday, consumers set their sights on surfing for holiday gifts and shopping online,” – Scott Silverman, Former Executive Director of Shop.org
The first Monday after the Thanksgiving Day is known as the ‘Cyber Monday’. This day is actually devoted to online shoppers. Cyber Monday officially came into being in the year 2005. The reason was that in the previous year, the market analysts noticed that on the first Monday after the Thanksgiving weekend, there was an increase in the online sales. You can aptly say that on Cyber Monday, you get a good bargain on many items including electrical and electronic goods. Thanks to the widespread usage of Internet and the advances in the field of Internet technologies, the small business owners can rub shoulders with retailing giants such as Walmart, Gap, Levis, Amazon and many more. On this day, you can buy anything and everything ranging from home appliances, laptops, mobiles, clothes, toys, holiday packages, dining packages at amazing rates.
Is Cyber Monday the New Black Friday?
In the past few years there has been a drastic change in the purchasing power and the behavioral pattern of consumers. Today, online shopping is seen as one of the preferred methods of shopping among the young and the old alike. This means online retailers (also known as e-tailers) have to revise their online strategies to suit the behavioral pattern of the holiday shoppers.
A research conducted by IBISWorld this year reports that Cyber Monday sales will skyrocket by at least 12.4 percent. The report also mentioned that today consumers are reluctant to stand in long lines at the stores. IBISWorld reports that because of the attractive deals and bargains coupled with consumers’ inclination to shop online using laptops or mobile phones is likely to increase the sales of Cyber Monday to $1.2 billion. This is double the growth as compared to the last few years. This is a boon to the growth of e-commerce and the SMBs should make use of this opportunity.
The reason why Cyber Monday is considered as the biggest shopping day of the year is because consumers prefer to shop from the comforts of their desk rather than to wait in long queues for good bargains in the chilling cold holiday season. Apart from that, most of the e-commerce shops provide free shipping. This is the new preferred choice of the consumers. Shoppers mainly look for televisions, laptops and digital cameras because most of the retailers offer a huge incentive for as much as 50 percent off on the original price along with free shipping.
Many believe that Black Friday will lose its glow in the near future because more and more consumers are becoming Internet-savvy. This allows them to compare prices of an item from the comfort of their office/homes. Studies indicate that some of the deals offered on Cyber Monday are not available on Black Friday. It is worth mentioning that e-tailers do not make much profit on this day. The whole idea is to make the consumers pick up additional items along with those, which have good bargain. The e-tailers believe that providing good service will bring back the consumers to their shops at a future date.
It will not be long before the consumers will stop shopping on Black Friday and make it a tradition to shop online on the Monday after the Thanksgiving Day. Thanks to publisher sites such as Cyber Monday Report that help online retailers to ease and simplify the process of delivering bargains to the laps of the end consumers. Cyber Monday has turned into a multi-million dollar industry of late with massive competition.
