Score Big Savings on Cyber Monday – Retailers Cut Prices Now!
According to data collected from retailer websites by third parties, holiday shoppers in the United States are actively searching for the top bargains and strategically taking advantage of the largest discounts before Cyber Monday. This day, known as the first Monday after Thanksgiving, has gained popularity among merchants who intensify their online promotions, making it the most significant day for online shopping in the country.
Strong online traffic on Black Friday showed that shoppers spent time and effort choosing the cheapest and best-value products, said Rob Garf, vice president and head of retail at Salesforce, which tracks data flowing through its Commerce Cloud service. e-commerce service.
Despite the earlier start of retailers’ holiday promotions this year, there weren’t many good deals at first, Garf said. Still, “consumers were patient, diligent and played discount chicken. And they won again.”
On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, retailers “increased their discounts” to an average of 30 percent in the U.S., he said. And “consumers clicked the buy button,” spending $16.4 billion online in the U.S. and $70.9 billion globally, according to Salesforce.
“We saw a big spike,” Garf said, adding that strong Black Friday online spending would “drag” the total for the entire Cyber Week, which began Tuesday and ends Monday.
On Cyber Monday, Salesforce expects to see discounts averaging 30 percent again. However, the risk for consumers is that products may not be available if they wait, he said.
Salesforce says it derives benchmarks of online traffic and spending from data flowing through its Commerce Cloud e-commerce service, which it says provides a window into the behavior of 1.5 billion people in 60 countries browsing thousands of e-commerce sites.
Other companies use different measurements to measure online stores.
Rival Adobe Analytics predicts shoppers will spend a record $12 billion on Monday, up 5.4% from last year, which it says represents the biggest online shopping day ever in the US. in electronics and 19% in furniture, said Vivek Pandya, principal analyst at Adobe Digital Insights.
Last-minute Cyber Monday shoppers can spend $4 billion between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. EST only, “because consumers are concerned about the reduction in discounts after that,” Pandya said.
Adobe offers merchants Experience Cloud, a service that powers their e-commerce business and gives Adobe a window into 85 percent of the top 100 Internet retailers.
Overall, “consumers are very strategic and want to maximize their purchases when they think they’re getting the best discounts,” Pandya said. “Online shopping is one of the few places where the consumer is a little more in the driver’s seat,” he said, especially with toys and seasonal holiday items.
“There are a lot of online retailers competing for their dollars and they can easily compare prices.”
Mastercard, which measures retail sales across all payment methods, said online sales rose 8.5% on Black Friday, while in-store sales rose 1%.
“Digital increased dramatically during the pandemic, and then returned to the average as people returned to stores,” said Steve Sadove, a senior adviser at Mastercard and former CEO of Saks Inc. “Now you’re seeing the digital evolution accelerate, once again. It’s becoming more important.”
