Tag: cyber monday 2013

The weekend following Black Friday may have seen a dip in sales, but the week started off strong.

Massive discounts from Black Friday and the Thanksgiving weekend throughout the U.S., on retail sales, took quite a toll, to the point that consumers spent nearly 3 percent less than they did last year, but Cyber Monday m-commerce data looks as though it may be turning that trend around.

The data was recently reported by an industry group and has revealed that online purchases were strong.

This may be an indication that while brick and mortar retailers could be facing a more difficult season, this year, Cyber Monday m-commerce and overall online shopping experienced soaring sales, which could help to make up for the lower figures from the days before. The National Retailer Federation had estimated that the weekend average spending per shopper would be about $407.02. When compared to last year at the same time, that would be 3.9 percent less due to the lower prices. The group suggested that if the prices stay down, the trend will last the rest of the way through the holiday season.

Cyber Monday m-commerce did prove to have powerful numbers, but it still represents only a fraction of overall spending.

According to the chief executive of the National Retail Federation, Matthew Shay, “Retailers will continue to aggressively promote their in-store and online offerings, looking to entice today’s very budget-conscious and value-focused shopper.” Data from Shay’s organization said that there were 141 million people in the United States who shopped at least one time over the weekend. This is an increase over the 139 million who did so last year. However, the total spending had been expected to hit $57.4 billion over the four days from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, which was a decrease of 2.8 percent when compared to the same four day period in 2012.

Analysts explained that the massive deals that drew large numbers of consumers shrank the sales and put a dent into the retail profit margins. Although the sales have been rising – particularly with the Cyber Monday m-commerce data being included into the mix, when all was said and done, the gross margins were headed downward.

According to a recent comScore report, online shopping this year will be bright for smartphones and tablets.

comScore has, once again, released its predictions for the holiday shopping season, and for its predictions of 2013, it has pointed out that mobile commerce is going to have a very bright opportunity, particularly on Cyber Monday.

Although there is a shorter season this year, when compared to last year, the decline should be only “slight”.

Although many have wondered if the fact that there is nearly a week – 6 days – less this shopping season from this Thanksgiving to Christmas, when compared to last year, comScore believes that there will be only a “slight decline” in the overall growth rate that will be experienced in a typical year. Moreover, it has predicted that when compared to the powerful sales that are experienced over mobile commerce and online shopping, this decline will even be noticeable.

Once mobile commerce has weighed in, it is likely that the year over year growth will be 14 to 17 percent.

comScore’s predictions have shown that this will allow mobile commerce to reach its highest percentage ever achieved out of the total online shopping, this year. The figures that they are predicting are that smartphone and tablet based sales will represent 12 to 13 percent of online shopping, and that the spending will near $10 billion for the last quarter of this year.

Mobile commerce has already reached record high percentages of total online spending within the last three quarters of the fiscal year, this year. It is being anticipated that this trend will keep up for the remainder of 2013 and that it will leap beyond last year’s total digital commerce spending, which was 11.3 percent.

According to the report from comScore, “We have seen that in periods of concentrated consumer activity, a greater number of people are likely to engage in emerging behaviors, such as mobile commerce.” Taking into consideration the fact that this short shopping season has six fewer days than it did last year, the analytics firm has predicted that purchasing will be far more concentrated and will therefore expand the need for tools such as smartphone and tablet based shopping.