The holiday shopping season is off to a strong start and retailers hope to continue the momentum today - Cyber Monday - the biggest online spending day of the year.
Amazon and Walmart Stores are vying for holiday spending with competing deals on flat-screen televisions, toys and gadgets.
Traditional retailers Macy’s, Sears and JC Penney have all shuttered stores, creating an opportunity for retailers to fill the void online, said Tom Forte, analyst at DA Davidson & Co.
“There’s a lot of market share out there to be had,” he said.
E-commerce spending will jump almost 17% from a year ago to $6.6 billion on Cyber Monday, according to estimates from Adobe Systems. Shoppers continue to ditch the hassle of crowded stores and malls for the convenience of shopping online.
Online spending during the November-December holiday season in the US is projected to reach about $107 billion this year, more than 11% of total holiday retail sales - the largest portion ever, according to EMarketer.
Amazon, the world’s biggest online retailer, is projected to capture half of the e-commerce holiday spending growth, according to Bain & Co. GBH Insights estimated Friday afternoon that Amazon had captured as much as 50% of all online Black Friday sales.
Retail Phenomenon
Cyber Monday became a phenomenon when e-commerce was in its infancy and most people had slow, dial-up internet connections at home. Online merchants noticed a spike in demand when shoppers returned to work where they had high-speed connections and shopping was less laborious.
Most people now have fast connections at home and on their mobile phones, yet Cyber Monday remains en vogue with shoppers conditioned to look for deals.
It’s also a day shoppers look beyond big-ticket electronics like flat-screen TVs that dominate Black Friday sales and widen their focus to apparel, toys and beauty products likely given as gifts, said Lindsay Sakraida, director of content marketing at DealNews.
“Even though Black Friday is an online event, there are some people who are still turned off by the chaos of shopping over the holiday weekend,” she said. “Cyber Monday appeals to a different kind of shopper who doesn’t want to feel rushed.”
News by Bloomberg, edited by ESM. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
