Nov 03 2009
Cyber Monday/Black Friday Forecast for 2009
It’s that time of the year again, so without further adieu, let’s talk about everyone’s favorite unofficial holiday, Cyber Monday!
Contrary to popular belief, the term “Cyber Monday” was not coined by an army of scotch drinking Japanese robots from the 1980′s, but rather by Shop.org, the prominent digital retail group who sought to create a sister holiday for Black Friday that focused solely on online commerce. Cyber Monday falls on the first Monday after Thanksgiving and has become more and more recognized over recent years.
While we at Email Responsibly have touched on the topic of Cyber Monday in the past, today it’s time to look forward to see what is in store for Cyber Monday this year.
- In general, we expect to see an overall increase in the number of Cyber Monday and Black Friday mentions (by name) in email campaigns this year. This development comes on the heels of last year’s holiday season in which we witnessed firsthand the increasing usage of the actual term “Cyber Monday” in email campaigns. Furthermore, we expect to see these terms being used earlier, more prevalently and together in the same email – certainly more-so than in prior years.
- We also expect email volumes to increase on these days, but perhaps not as sharply as the increases seen in recent years. Considering that the volume of email sent on Black Friday increased 64% from 2007 to 2008, and 40% from 2007 to 2008, we don’t expect quite as large an increase from 2008 to 2009. However, the economy stands to play a large role in just how much email gets sent on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If consumer spending looks weak towards the end of November, we might see a spike in email volume as companies react by offering last-minute sales and deals.
- Looking at consumer behavior over recent years, we expect online shopping to heat up a few weeks prior to the start of the traditional holiday shopping season and then cool off slightly during the week of Christmas. Two years ago, online purchases peaked during the traditional shopping week ending Monday, November 26th (Cyber Monday) when fully a quarter of all adults bought something online. Online purchases in 2007 remained high for several weeks after Thanksgiving before falling to 17% during the week of Christmas. Now compare those statistics with those from last year (which had a late Thanksgiving) when online purchasing heated up even earlier – several weeks prior to Black Friday. In fact, between the weeks ending November 3rd and November 10th in 2008, the share of adults who made an online purchase more than doubled from 11% to 23%. For the most part, online purchase levels remained at or near this level for the duration of the 2008 shopping season until dropping back down to 16% during the week of Christmas.
- With Thanksgiving falling late in the calendar again this year, expect consumers to exhibit similar purchasing patterns as they did last year. In a typical week of the year, approximately 15% of all American adults make a purchase online. However, during the five weeks prior to last Christmas, an average of 23% of adults made an online purchase, which was 50% higher than normal. Look for more of the same when this holiday season rolls around.
