Black Friday Ideas
If you missed yesterday's column,
click here to see my Black Friday stories.
Cyber Monday Hoax Coming True
A few years ago, a marketing association gave the name "Cyber Monday" to the Monday after Thanksgiving. The story was that on that day, people rush back to work, get online and start ordering Christmas gifts. But it was just a PR campaign based on no evidence that such a thing happened.
Now, e-retailers take Cyber Monday seriously, and it might just be creating a Monday-after effect.
BusinessWeek discovered in 2005 that not only was the Monday after Thanksgiving not the biggest day for online sales, it was not even in the top 10!
BusinessWeek found that the biggest day fell somewhere between
Dec. 5 and Dec. 15.
The BusinessWeek story said Cyber Monday was the dream of online retailers who wanted something to compete with the Black Friday hype that bricks and mortar stores get:
Shop.org member Shmuel Gniwisch, chief executive of the online jewelry site Ice.com, recalls getting an e-mail from Shop.org last year, suggesting that online retailers come up with their own marketing hook to match Black Friday. "The online guys got together and said, 'Let's give people something different," he says. "The reality is, we didn't notice anything special" on the Monday after Thanksgiving.
But now, the notion may have created a self-fulfilling reality. The National Retail Federation says Cyber Monday has gained enough steam to spur big retailers to offer discounts and special deals:
According to the eHoliday Survey, conducted this fall by BizRate
Research, the majority of online retailers will feature special
promotions for Cyber Monday this year. Promotions will range from
special e-mail campaigns (32 percent) to specific deals (29.9 percent) to one-day
sales (28.9 percent). Additionally, one-fourth of retailers (24.7 percent) will offer
free shipping on all purchases. In fact, 72.2 percent of online
retailers are planning a special promotion for Cyber Monday, up from
42.7 percent just two years ago.
Cyber Monday, a term coined by
Shop.org in 2005, began after online retailers noticed a trend of
people shopping online on the Monday after Thanksgiving. Since then,
consumers have flooded websites on Cyber Monday and come to expect
robust promotions and specials that day.
"As more people rely
on the Internet for holiday shopping, retailers have stepped up their
game to compete," said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org. "This year, promotions on Cyber Monday are extremely competitive as
online retailers use an assortment of one-day specials to send shoppers
online."
Though more than half of U.S. homes have high-speed
access, many Americans feel the best place to shop for online gifts is
not at the mall, but at the office. This year, according to a
BIGresearch survey conducted for Shop.org, 54.5 percent of office
workers with Internet access, or 68.5 million people, will shop for
holiday gifts from work, up substantially from 50.7 percent in 2006 and
44.7 percent in 2005.
Christmas SafetyYou know what today is. It is the day that Mom cringes while Dad hops up on the roof and hangs the Christmas lights. A couple of years ago
The Orange County Register cited the Consumer Product Safety Commission's statistic that each year, hospital emergency rooms treat about
12,800 people for falls and other injuries from incidents involving
holiday lights, Christmas trees and other decorations.
A lot of you will do stories this year about Christmas tree fires. You will focus, most likely, on overtaxed outlets and lights. But by far, the biggest fire dangers in your home are in the kitchen and when you burn candles.
Hire a Professional Christmas Light Decorator
Let's say you choose not to climb up on the roof and break your neck this year. For about the price of a night in the hospital and a day of pain meds, you could hire a
professional decorator to hang your lights (and haul them away after Christmas).
Here is a map of where to find some of these folks nationwide.
Click here to see how all of this works. Believe me, hanging lights on your gutters just won't do it for you anymore.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's
Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story
excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as
original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly
from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided
whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends on the
accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and
inaccuracies found will be corrected.
