Most people think that I’ve been MIA because I’m out covering and/or participating in Black Friday events. Wrong. I’ve been listening to some of the analysts calls and tracking reports as they come in, but not as much as I usually do. Why you ask? Well, it’s because this is the first year in my ENTIRE professional career that I haven’t worked in retail, worked for a product company that supported retailers, worked for a digital marketing company with a large retail client, or run a retail group for a brand. So I decided that my Black Friday gift to myself was going to be to let myself enjoy the weekend after Thanksgiving for the first time in 12 years.
But it’s Monday and it’s back to the grind. I’m multi-tasking in California – preparing for meetings at Facebook and following the events of Cyber Monday, a shopping holiday invented by Shop.org. According to comScore, online retailers in the U.S. saw an 11% (2008’s Black Friday activity only saw a 1% increase over 2007) increase in Black Friday activity over last year with $595 million in sales. And these same retailers are hoping to see even larger increase over last years’ Cyber Monday sales.
While anxiously awaiting the updates, I paid a visit to the top 30 retailers and the 80+ others that send me emails. There was a clear winner and loser.
And the first place ribbon goes to AMAZON!
Not only did Amazon have tremendous offers, but they organized those offers on a Cyber Monday page as well as featured the Cyber Monday deals on the relevant category pages. For some items, shoppers could take advantage of “lightening deals” in which products of limited quantities were available during a specific time at an even further discount. Sound confusing? Well, the user experience was very intuitive, but just in case Amazon created a special FAQ page outlining the dos and don’ts of the program. I was lucky enough to grab a lightening deal for my sister’s Christmas present as well as pick up a little something for myself.
My favorite thing about the program was Amazon’s use of proactive communication. Some people aren’t able to sit around trolling for deals and waiting for them to be announced. Some retailers solved this problem by sending multiple (read three to four) emails reminding consumers of the deals they may be missing. But Amazon created a Twitter account where interested consumers could follow to be notified when new deals were being posted and lightening deals were beginning.
Again, Amazon brings it as a service company that retails products.
And in last place we have Neiman Marcus.
I saw some bad offers and poor execution of Cyber Monday programs, but the worst of the worst award goes to Neiman Marcus. Earlier this month I wrote a post about my concern for what the increase in NM’s gimmicky marketing tactics. But today’s offer was the most gimmicky of them all. Check it out:
Really? The Butterfly Game? Neiman Marcus’ best idea for a Cyber Monday program is to have a one day event where consumers hunt all over the site to learn how to receive a gift card with the purchase of regularly priced items. This might be interesting to consumers on days when other sites are discounting their inventory up to 75%. But I can’t see a huge percentage of consumers spending the day clicking around on Neiman’s to find a deal only valuable in the future while there are bigger and better deals TODAY at other sites – even competitive retailers that sell the same higher end brands.
Suffice to say, I was really disappointed.
The Future Of Retail Is Here 