Online Shopping Records Broken on Black Friday

Record numbers of consumers never left their homes on Black Friday, the official start of the holiday shopping season. Instead, they poured online in far greater numbers than last year, according to research released by Nielsen/NetRatings.

Some 7.4 million unique visitors to more than 100 online retailers the day after Thanksgiving -- 29 percent more than last year’s Black Friday -- prove that the Web has become a vital component of Americans’ shopping preparations. While many shoppers headed out to the stores over the weekend, the majority first turned to the Internet to check prices and product availability, reported Heather Dougherty, senior retail analyst, Nielsen/NetRatings.

Ebay was the top online retailer over the weekend, with 9.5 million unique visitors. Next in traffic was Amazon with 4.6 million and Wal-Mart Stores, which drew 3.4 million. Target was next with 2.9 million, and BestBuy.com attracted 2.1 million. These were the top online shopping destinations last year on Black Friday as well. But there were also newcomers in this year’s top 10: Circuitcity.com, Dell and Shopzilla.com.

The fastest-growing retail category online on Black Friday was toys and video games, with a 152% week-over-week growth (daily percent change from Nov. 18 to Nov. 25). This sector was fueled by the release of the Xbox 360 and portable game consoles. Next was consumer electronics, which climbed 142%, followed by computer hardware/software with 102% growth. Among the hottest consumer electronics and computer products this year are flat-screen TVs, iPods and other MP3 players, Ms. Dougherty said.

One reason for brisk online sales is rising fuel costs that make shopping from home easier on the budget. Another reason is that online retailers have inundated consumers with special promotions this year, in what Ms. Dougherty calls “a deluge” of free shipping, sales, gifts with purchase and more. “It definitely seems far stronger than ever before,” she said. Additional growth was seen, “cyber Monday,” the Monday after Thanksgiving. “Their e-mail inboxes are filled with promotions, so it makes sense that they will at least go to sites to check them out,” she added.

The Nielsen/NetRatings Holiday eShopping Index is comprised of 100 online retailers across 10 categories, whose online traffic figures and other data are studied and released throughout the holiday season.

Source: AdAge.com

Tis the Season for Online Shopping

As we all know, the holidays are the biggest time of the year for retail shopping. Retailers, especially the big dogs, open up the marketing budgets for ad spending that, in most cases, pays off big time. This coming Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is known as the biggest shopping day of the year. This day, referred to as Black Friday, is called that because it is always considered a day where the accounting books will be 'in the black' (as opposed to being in the red) which signifies a profit.

According to a new poll from Yahoo! Small Business, 83 percent of shoppers during the holidays plan on doing so online. The poll continues to show that 63 percent of those respondents plan to shop with small retailers who offer niche or specialty goods. In addition, three out of five respondents stated that it was very important to know that their favorite store had an online presence.

With over half of people polled saying that they plan on doing at least half of their gift shopping online this year, this means big business for small business this year!

A Thanks to Blog Readers

With all this talk about coupon codes recently (I'm working on some coupon marketing projects at the office lately) made me think that I should offer mine up to readers of this blog.

So, here are a few from my T-Shirt site,
Regal Threads.

SAVE up to 30%! They automatically deduct from your total at checkout. So, keep me in mind for the gift-giving holidays! Feel free to pass along these coupons along. Your friends will love you for it!

Go to: www.RegalThreads.com

Save $7.50 on $50.00 (Code: HOLIDAY50)
Save $20.00 on $100.00 (Code: HOLIDAY100)
Save $37.50 on $150.00 (Code: HOLIDAY150)
Save $55.00 on $200.00 + free shipping (Code: HOLIDAY200)
Save $75.00 on $250.00 + free shipping (Code: HOLIDAY250)

Thanks for all your support!

The 'Secret' in Coupon Codes

You know that funny-looking code that you enter when making a transaction online that gives you 10% off the item you're purchasing. These are secret codes that online retailers only share with special customers, partners or employees. There are many names for them, but I call them coupon codes.

The funny thing about coupon codes is that they have become a viral campaign of sorts. When one person finds a coupon code, many times, they will send it out to their friends and colleagues to also use. "Hey Betty, I just found this coupon to get 20% off at Target." Who's going to turn that down? They get passed around the web via email, message boards and coupon archiving sites such as dealhunting.com and slickdeals.net. If you haven't checked them out, you're sure to save a bunch.

If you have an online store, you should definitely look into the possibility of adding coupon codes to the checkout system. Then, you can do many things to promote this code. You can send out an email to your clients who will likely pass it on or jump on some of these archiving sites and get it out there. It will spread like a virus!

Search Engine Advertising Now Cheaper

Yahoo! has made an adjustment in Yahoo! Search Marketing (or Overture), their sponsored search product that's used by many growing businesses. They've just eliminated the $20 monthly minimum fee for the pay-per-click offering. They expect the move to help boost use of the service among first-time customers who may have been wary about signing up. What's it to you? It could be a good time for entrepreneurs to try out search engine advertising without risking any big budget drains.

What is it? For those unfamiliar with search engine advertising it’s typically called Pay-Per-Click advertising (or PPC). Go to Google or Yahoo and search for something. See those search results up at the top and down the right hand side? Those are all paid listings. The advertiser is paying a small fee (starting at $0.10 on Yahoo) for each click. Each advertiser bids for positioning by the amount they are willing to spend per click. The higher the bid - the higher you ad will be positioned. This can get tricky when advertisers start competing for position.

What does this mean to small businesses? This means that business owners who have wanted to get started with search engine advertising can do so with very little investment up front. All it takes is a little time to learn the game and a little patience. I call it ‘a game’ because, if you’re like me, once you get in there and start playing with it you’ll find it to be addicting and fun playing with the numbers in order to beat out your competition without blowing your wad. If you’ve ever get caught up in a bidding war for an item you really want on Ebay you know what I mean.

The key is to test, test and re-test. Many variables come into play and will determine your return on the investment including how your ad reads, what page you are sending them do, your ad positioning and how much you are shelling out per click. It’s a lot like playing chess – it’s a tricky game but can be fun.

I recently opened a new advertising account for a t-shirt business I started (http://www.regalthreads.com: shameless plug) to test out the new Yahoo online advertising model. I started the account with no start up cost and I deposited just $30 to get started. This $30 is used to pay for your clicks. Notice the screenshot above shows my site at the top of the page! I’ll post more later on my experiences with this. So, STAY TUNED! Feel free to post comments or email me with your own experiences.