Tag: holiday

IBM Viewpoints – November 29, 2011

Posted on by CyberDude

Online Holiday Shoppers Drive Record Sales Growth

Early 2011 online holiday retail sales surged over the past five days as consumers gobbled up deals and hot ticket items from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, driving record double digit growth for retailers. Throughout the weekend, IBM’s online retail benchmark analyzed and revealed consumer shopping trends, such as the increasing influence of mobile holiday shoppers led by consumers using iPhones, iPads, Android phones and other devices to research deals and comparison shop for online bargains. Dozens of media outlets across North America reported on IBM’s Smarter Commerce initiative and analysis of Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping trends and sales growth.

IBM’s Viewpoint
IBM’s key insights from its analysis of the early holiday sales results include:

— Online Shopping Surge: Cyber bargain hunters drove a nearly 40 percent increase in online Thanksgiving day spending, 24.3 percent growth in Black Friday online sales and a 33 percent jump in Cyber Monday sales compared with the same period in 2010.
— Mobile Bargain Hunters: Consumers using their mobile devices to shop accounted for 14.3 percent of all Black Friday online retail traffic and 10.8 percent of traffic on Cyber Monday.
— iPod & iPad Influence: iPhone and iPad shoppers generated more retail purchases than consumers using other mobile devices, accounting for 10.2 percent of all online retail traffic on Black Friday and 7.4 percent on Cyber Monday.

What They’re Saying
USA Today reported that retail sales broke records over Thanksgiving weekend and quoted IBM Smarter Commerce Chief Strategy Officer John Squire http://ibm.co/vlrCpc

In a TV segment aired from the IBM Research Industry Solutions Lab, CNBC previewed Cyber Monday sales and detailed insights from IBM’s online retail benchmark study http://ibm.co/uM5MDj

Fox Business spotlighted IBM’s analysis of Cyber Monday shopping trends http://ibm.co/uAIoDt

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IBM Viewpoints – November 22, 2011

Posted on by CyberDude

Holiday Shopping Goes Mobile

On the eve of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, 2011 is expected to be the year of the mobile holiday shopper as more consumers are expected to make their purchases via an iPad, Android phone and other devices. A recent IBM analytics benchmark projects that online holiday shopping in November will grow as much as 15 percent (versus 3.9 percent in November 2010) — and many of those shoppers will make their purchases using a mobile device.

IBM’s Viewpoint
IBM’s key predictions for the November holiday shopping season include:

— The Mobile Impact: A record number of consumers will shop from their mobile devices. October 2011 figures state that 10.7 percent of people who logged onto a retailer’s site used a mobile device, up from 4.2 percent the year before. Additionally, sales transactions from mobile devices are growing, reaching a high of 9.6 percent in October 2011, up from 3.4 percent in October 2010.
— The iPad Factor: The iPad will dominate holiday sales over other mobile devices. This trend is based on October 2011 figures where 6.8 percent of consumers shopping on an iPad made a purchase as compared to the overall mobile device purchase rate of 3.6 percent.
— The Facebook Factor: The vast majority of social shopping will continue to come from Facebook, which in October accounted for 77 percent of all traffic from social sites.

What They’re Saying
In a report on Fox Business, IBM Smarter Commerce Chief Strategy Officer John Squire discusses increasing consumer interest in using mobile devices to shop for holiday gifts http://ibm.co/rwtNqU

A MarketWatch article suggests that 2011 will be the year of the mobile shopper http://ibm.co/tratiL

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#smartercommerce #ibmbenchmark #holidayretail