holiday shopping Tag

2009 Online Holiday Shopping Ends High

The numbers are in from the 2009 online holiday shopping season, and it could be a good sign for the economy.  In the report from comScore, the e-commerce industry faired better than the same time in 2008. 

“During [November 1- December 24], approximately $27 Billion was spent online, which represents an increase of 5 percent over the same period a year ago,” said the comScore Press Release. For the period from Black Friday through Christmas Eve, and after adjusting for the additional shopping day in 2009, sales grew by approximately 3.5 percent.” (more…)

Online Retailers Gear Up For Free Shipping Day

Have you finished all your holiday shopping yet?  Have you been taking advantage of the discounts offered exclusively on social media sites?  If you still have yet to finish your holiday shopping and plan on purchasing online items, tomorrow is the last day to really guarantee that your gifts will arrive by Christmas.  Both online stores and consumer can really take advantage of this and profit in the end.

While we have passed Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the week before Christmas eve, which happens to be Thursday this year, is known as Free Shipping Day.  It is the second annual event according to FreeShippingDay.com, which is about promoting free shipping and guaranteeing arrival before Christmas Day.  (more…)

Cyber Monday Sales Better Than Expected

Results are already pouring in from yesterday’s Cyber Monday sales.  While sales were expected to fall compared to last year, they actually grew 13.7%, a significant increase considering the current economy. 

The report comes from Coremetrics Inc, a web analyst company based out of California.  The report also indicated that people spent more money for online sales Monday, compared to Black Friday. (more…)

The Truth About Cyber Monday

As I am sure you are aware, today is Cyber Monday.  A day supposed to be filled with discounts and deals for online shoppers.  While you will find many great deals, some are questioning whether Cyber Monday is real or just a smart business ploy.  It seems to be a bit of both.  Let me explain.

Just 4 years ago, in 2005, Shop.org coined the phrase ‘Cyber Monday’ in order to bring more traffic to their website.  A year later, hundreds of other online retailers jumped on board and started an Internet tradition.  While Black Friday, remains the biggest shopping day of the year, CyberMonday surprisingly is actually not the biggest online shopping day.  One year after Cyber Monday started, Scott Silverman, Executive Director for Shop.org, said “It was not the biggest day, but it was an opportunity to create some consumer excitement.”  (more…)

Wal-Mart And Amazon Battle It Out For Top Holiday Deals

Let the chaos begin, the holiday shopping season has officially arrived.  While the world is an economic battle, another battle is brewing between many online retailers, most specifically between Amazon & Walmart.  Last Friday, millions of people started their holiday shopping, lining up to get their hands on some of the best deals around.  It turns out though that many skipped the lines and did their shopping exclusively online.

Data from Experian Hitwise shows that Walmart.com took the top spot for sales on Thanksgiving Day, while Amazon.com had the biggest revenue for Black Friday.  Unfortunately, Experian Hitwise said that among the top 500 online retail stores, the number of U.S. visits were down 15% on Thanksgiving Day compared to  the same day last year.  Online traffic on Black Friday was also down nearly 4% compared to 2008.  (more…)

A Social Media Guide To Black Friday

It’s hard to believe, but the 2009 holiday season is upon us.  For the past several weeks, we’ve told you about companies gearing up for the holiday season.  While the ‘official’ start to holiday shopping doesn’t begin until Friday, companies have been using the power of the Internet in order to attract customers. Black Friday 2009 will definitely be different from years past, as Twitter and Facebookhave become a regulare part of our everyday life. (more…)

Consumers Ready for Social Media Holiday Deals

Everyone is gearing up for the holiday season.  While many businesses have said that they will be using social media sites this year to attract online shoppers and offering exclusive discounts to users, consumers are already scoping out discounts through social media networks. 

The advertising agency Razorfish released the results of survey on Tuesday, suggesting that online businesses should start to see profits for the holiday season very soon, if not immediately.  Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, falls on November 30 this year and has been the No. 1 online shopping day since its start in 2004, but online shoppers are looking to start their holiday shopping early this year.  (more…)

Online Retailers Expected To Have Best Holiday Season

Forrester Research came out with a survey Monday, which said that online retailers will see an 8% increase in sales since last year while stationary retailers are expected to show no increase.  And with online advertising through the  use of social media, this is no surprise, since the world is trying to break out of the global economic crisis. 

The National Retail Federation has unfortunately forecasted a 1% decline in overall U.S. holiday sales this year. The Forrester survey which had polled more than 4,000 U.S. online consumers found that 94% of those who have shopped online within the past three months plan to shop online this holiday season. (more…)

This Week In Social Media – October 23, 2009

iePlexus “Week in Social Media” October 23, 2009 from iePlexus on Vimeo.

iePlexus “Week in Social Media” October 23, 2009 from iePlexus on Vimeo.

-The Web 2.0 Summit took place this week in San Francisco. Some of the biggest news from the event came out on Wednesday.  Both Microsoft and Google announced they would be teaming up with Twitterto bring real-time search updates to the search engines.  Microsoft’s Qi Lu first announced that Bing.comwould be getting get the real time twitter searchs updates, up on their site, which happened just minutes after the announcement.  Twitter’s blog said that they want to make twitter a search tool to help find people what they need in current time. Surprisingly, just a few hours after Microsoft’s big announcement, Google announced they would also be teaming up with Twitter to bring real-time search.  Neither of the companies would release the financial terms of their deals but are expected to bring more traffic to the search engine sites. There are also rumors the sites are trying to team up with Facebook as well. To watch the announcement’s in their entirety, visit Web 2.0 Summit’s website. (more…)

Retailers Gearing Up For Holiday’s With Social Media

The National Retail Federation (NRF) released a survey this morning which stated that more online retailers are gearing up for the upcoming holiday season, and will be using social media too attract consumers.  This comes after the NRF reported on Tuesday, that they anticipate holiday shoppers to spend about 3.2% less than they spent last year, averaging about $682 a person.

The new survey said that over 47% of online retailers who were polled stated they would be increasing the use of their social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, realizing that shoppers are continuously on those sites, and that using these tools could be more effective.  Just over 60% said they have created or beefed up the companies Facebook page, while 59% have done that with Twitter.  And 66% of online retailers have added and improved on their company blog. (more…)