• by Jessica , December 3, 2010

Happy Belated Cyber Monday!

Marketing blogger Laura Lake of About.com posted statistics for the biggest online shopping day in America this year:

-Online retailers saw a 20% year over year increase in sales for Cyber Monday 2010.

-The most popular offers included free shipping and deep discounts.

-107 million people bought online during Cyber Monday this year.

The Independent, a newspaper in the United Kingdom, posted these numbers for Cyber Monday:

-Customers spent an average of $194.84 this year, compared to $180.03 in 2009.

-One percent of Cyber Monday customers arrived to online retailers via a social networking site, mainly Facebook.

-Shoppers on mobile devices made up 3.9% of Cyber Monday customers.

My CM 2010 experience

In my opinion, Cyber Monday is much better than Black Friday. I can shop in the comfort of my house, in my pajamas, in my bed, without getting up at 2 a.m., and let the online retailers duke it out for me. As a college student, I could shop between classes without even leaving campus.

Amazon.com’s deals looked fantastic: Medal of Honor for Xbox at $30. Sleek Logitech speakers for $15. And they kept swapping in new deals for expired ones after a certain time.

I thought the strategy was smart: keep customers coming back all day long, and while they’re waiting, they’ll probably browse and buy a couple other things.

One problem with this, however, was the fact that a customer didn’t necessarily know what the next items to go on sale would be. The clickable box on the site would show most items coming up in a few minutes, but not all the ones that would go on sale a few hours later. I would have liked to see Amazon do something that showed exactly what items would go on sale at what time.

That would probably mess up the strategy. But it would be better for the customer.

My only other stop on Cyber Monday was Target.com. Target went about their CM methods a bit differently – and I liked theirs better than Amazon’s. Target simply had a section of their site devoted to all Cyber Monday deals, divided into categories such as electronics, toys and clothing. All items were on sale all day until they ran out. I could browse through items without having to wait for them to go on sale.

Okay, so, even as much as I think Cyber Monday is a great idea, I didn’t end up buying anything that day. I found some great deals, but after consulting with people whom I might have bought them for, I decided to wait for different gifts. I think next year, I’ll plan on using helpful sites like cybermonday2010.com to find better bargains. I want to take better advantage of Cyber Monday next year.