As every good American knows… you eat the turkey, you shop the deals. In that order.
Without a doubt the days following Thanksgiving (Black Friday and in Stylight’s obvious interest, Cyber Monday) are the most strategic and possibly even crucial shopping days known to man.
From US to Europe:
A worldwide cyber pandemic
Coined back in 2005, Cyber Monday seemed like the most obvious way of providing e-shops with their own ‘special day’ ahead of the Christmas rush. But, fast forward only a decade and CM has undeniably become a ‘thing’ for every e-commerce company out there. The same can be said for consumers, switching from a stateside shopping tradition to a firmly established European retail phenomenon. It looks like scanning for huge discounts and bargains from the comfort of your own couch is something to be fully (and globally) enjoyed. How else did you think you we’re going to digest all that turkey?
“For about 2 years we’ve been observing a huge adoption of this last weekend in November in the communication of online merchants in Europe. The vast majority of important retailers and brands have by now included those days in their marketing strategy and it seems that the budget they allocate towards their communication has increased significantly year after year,” comments Damien Verichon, Stylight’s Business Development Product Owner. “If online retailers continue to market and promote awareness about special cyber sales days, then we could start to see it become commonplace that the European consumer will plan ahead not only for traditional sales periods but also these specialized ones, similar to those in America.”
Photo: LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images
An international phenomenon that our deal-savvy Brit consumers are fully embracing: this year Black Friday was the strongest day on record for internet shopping with UK shoppers spending a whooping £1.1 billion. France’s cousins are also satisfying their etailers’ needs: Amazon.it has set its own record in Italy during Black Friday, with more than 600.000 products ordered. Whilst in Germany, experts expected a rise from last year’s online sales by as much as 16,8% over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend, with the total amount accumulating to €924 million, €346 million going through online checkouts on Cyber Monday alone.
Cyber Monday shopping, which was expected to make the US $3 billion, went on to smash through those figures to bring in a record $490 million between the hours of midnight to 10 a.m. ET, with 13 out of every 100 products out-of-stock. The term ‘shopaholic’ may spring to mind…
What’s also interesting is to notice how the figure for growth of the amount of traffic coming in from mobile devices has steadily increased: 53% of total shopping visits according to Adobe, generating 35% of online sales.
Wondering which type of consumer audience is more into following these sorts of shopping trends? Well, we’ve got found answer that is definitely interesting (to us at least). As highlighted by a recent National Retail Federation (NRF) survey, Millennials declared they LOVE the idea of exclusive online deals and any excuse for couch surfing: 88.7% of 18-24 year olds and 90.9% of those 25-34 who decided to shop, planned to do it online during Cyber Monday. Just one of the many, many reasons we love them!
Cyber Monday all day err day
Cyber Monday is currently retaining its title as leading role in the US for 2015, but it looks pretty obvious that the situation has only recently developed. Once there was only ever one Cyber Monday, but with the ever-increasing competition in the e-commerce market, as well as the rise of the savvier and let’s say ‘on-the-ball’ e-shopper, a clear trend has started to emerge. A change in consumer mind-set calls for a different marketing attitude. E-tailers have recently been borrowing the Cyber Monday formula to create their own customized days for special discounts, focused solely on specific product categories, targets and services.
Ever heard of ‘FedEx Monday’? You have now. Held annually on December 21st, FedEx Monday gives shoppers the chance to buy extremely last-minute and still receive their gift in time for Christmas, in fact, make that in time for Christmas eve.
Following the ‘special days’ for sale shopping trend, some retailers also make plans to extend day promotions to fully fledged weeks. Amazon began its ‘8 days to Black Friday’ sale and then announced that they’ll continue with sales until the 5th of December. Talk about a Black ‘Two Weeks’.
You might not know that you can also save whilst spending via mobile devices, again from the comfort of your own home (and inseparable love for your couch) during ‘Sofa Sunday’ – the Sunday during Thanksgiving weekend. And, not surprisingly, ‘Singles Day’, the Chinese annual online shopping event that takes place on 11th November, has become the world’s biggest e-commerce fixture for the year.
Customers’ wish lists provide e-shops with a sneak peek into what people are eyeing up for their annual shopping spree, making it even easier to build and tailor customized discount days. Could we then say that every day is a cyber ‘special day’? The constantly increasing focus on online shopping strategies finds its roots also in the promising forecasts: according to statista.com in 2016 worldwide B2C e-commerce sales are expected to amount to $1,155.7 billion, $458.98 of which are generated in Europe alone. If there was ever a reason to push on your ‘cyber days’. But, hang on, what about this holiday season?
20% of 2015 global online revenue is expected to come from the holiday season
As Europe’s leading fashion aggregator, we’re very, very aware of how the holiday season impacts upon the e-commerce industry. As we said, ‘cyber fever’ is now bigger and more mainstream than ever; so the question remains.. should we begin to expect even bigger changes over the next few years during these peak global online shopping days? Well, that’s why for this holiday season, we went and gathered global insights and forecasts concerning all this year’s sales, style trends, and purchasing expectations.
Here you are, a sneak peek of our Stylight ‘Global Holiday 2015 eCommerce Forecast’:
The ultimate shopping weekend has (sadly) gone, but there’s still plenty of online deals and bargains for worldwide consumers to get their mitts on and find the perfect gift for someone they love (or themselves). Of course, this doesn’t mean that in-store shopping has died a terrible death, oh no. Physical shopping has integrated more and more with it’s online counterpart, with a huge amount of its audience using their smartphones to research and check products’ in-store availability and reviews. The inclination for doing everything online today is everyday becoming more of a foothold and, well, that’s something we definitely want to scream and shout about!
|By Ilenia Sarman|
