Online Retail Sales Expected To Escalate after Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Furniture World Magazine

We are a nation of procrastinators. This is why it should not be surprising that Black Friday (the popular shopping frenzy that occurs the day after Thanksgiving) and Cyber Monday (which happens when Americans return to work the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend and make online holiday purchases) are not the busiest shopping days of the year. The week before and the week after Christmas represents the heaviest spending period for consumers, according to the National Retail Federation. Many of these transactions are still conducted at physical stores, but more and more purchases are made online. A rapidly growing number shoppers are turning to the Internet – to buy gifts, and to research products and compare prices if they end up purchasing items at a bricks-and-mortar store. As a result, many retailers are enhancing their sites and offering online deals to compete. The latter is especially true for this holiday season, says Luke Knowles, who is founder and president of FreeShipping.org (www.freeshipping.org), a one-stop destination for consumers to find online retailers that offer free shipping deals. “Since the economy is sluggish, consumers will be looking for deals more than ever because they have less disposable income. Some people plan to only buy items that are on sale,” Knowles explained. “This is a key reason why online sales – not just on Cyber Monday, but through much of December – should be brisk.” According to a new study conducted after the financial market meltdown by BDO Seidman, LLP (which is one of the nation's leading accounting and consulting organizations), chief marketing officers at leading U.S. retailers expect Internet sales to grow eight percent. Knowles believes that the online holiday shopping season begins in early November, based on traffic he has seen on FreeShipping.org, but the unofficial start date happens on Cyber Monday, which falls on December 1 this year. According to comStore Inc, which provides marketing research about online retailing, $608 million in online retail spending was recorded on Cyber Monday in 2006, setting an online shopping record. In the month that followed, the record was broken on 11 days, and the busiest day was December 13 with $667 million in sales. Knowles, who founded FreeShipping.org with his wife Maisie and debuted the site in December 2007, expects an all-time high in traffic this December. The site, which includes more than 850 name-brand stores, allows visitors to search by brand or category. Among the major retailers on FreeShipping.org are JCPenney, Target, Bloomingdale's, Kohl’s, Sears, Best Buy, Victoria's Secret, and Saks Fifth Avenue. “You will also see an increase of free shipping deals this holiday season” Knowles added. “People are expecting it – especially in this economy - and retailers see it as an effective way to make sales, even if sales are down at bricks-and-mortar locations.” FreeShipping.org is a premiere online destination for online shoppers to find free shipping deals offered by more than 850 online retailers, including JCPenney, Target, Bloomingdale’s, Kohl’s, Sears, Best Buy, Old Navy, Nordstrom and Macy’s. For more information, visit www.freeshipping.org.