[December 01, 2008]

Online retailers seek a slice of sales with Cyber Monday deals

(Sacramento Bee, The (CA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ Cyber Monday is no Black Friday _ at least not yet.

More than 80 percent of leading online retailers will offer special promotions Monday in hopes of producing the sort of buying frenzy that filled stores Friday, according to a retail industry survey.

But while the Web's official holiday-shopping launch is gaining importance as a marketing tool, it's still far from being the phenomenon that the day after Thanksgiving has become.

"When we do our surveys, we have to define what Cyber Monday is, because consumers don't really know," said Tom Krause, director of strategic consulting for St. Louis-based Maritz Research.

Of a half-dozen local online shoppers contacted last week by The Sacramento Bee, only two were familiar with the Cyber Monday term _ and neither was planning to splurge on the day.

"I haven't received any advertisements about Cyber Monday," said Kiyomi Tanaka, an avid Web shopper from Elk Grove, Calif. "Who sends those out?"

Part of Cyber Monday's limited buzz has to do with the online world's still-small (though growing) share of the shopping pie. While holiday Web business is expected to hit $44 billion this year, it makes up less than 10 percent of all shopping for the season, according to the National Retail Federation.

Cyber Monday is also a relatively new marketing concept. The National Retail Federation tagged the day in 2005 on the premise that it was the first chance after the big Thanksgiving shopping weekend for cubicle-dwellers to shop on their speedy office Internet connections.

In the last two years, Cyber Monday fell earlier on the calendar and has, in fact, been the richest online shopping day in November, according to data from Chase Paymentech, which monitors sales at 25 leading Web retailers. But it hasn't matched up to most any weekday in December, according to the Paymentech figures.

Still, even if Cyber Monday doesn't deliver huge revenue, it's a useful tool for retailers, said Kevin Strawbridge, president of dealtaker.com.

"They're initiating the season," he said. "By pointing to a specific date online, marketers are able to say, 'This is the gateway into the season; now it's time for you consumers to go ahead and pull out your wallets and start purchasing.'"

Sacramento retailer Goore's for Babies to Teens decided to offer its first Cyber Monday discounts this year, said co-owner Richard Goore. His business doesn't usually see a big lift during the holidays, he said, and he was looking for a way to plug into the season's rush.

"Whether people need baby stuff or not, they're out there shopping," he said.

Goore's has a Black Friday sale too, but Monday is offering even deeper discounts _ half-off six popular items _ only through its Web site.

Despite the bad economy, Web retailers are expected to post a holiday sales increase of about 12 percent over last year, according to Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. That's only about half the gain the sector saw last year, but it's better than the flat or negative growth predicted for the retail sector as a whole.

As a social phenomenon, Cyber Monday also doesn't have the group-outing appeal of Black Friday. At the Galleria mall in Roseville, Calif., on Friday, it was hard to find anyone who wasn't sharing their shopping with friends or family.

"It's our tradition" _ and a respite from kids _ said Jaskaran Birak of Granite Bay, Calif., pausing in front of the Williams Sonoma store. Johal had heard of Cyber Monday but wasn't planning any shopping for the occasion.

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(c) 2008, Sacramento Bee

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