Although Cyber Monday sales fell short of the hopeful prediction of $900 Million, it sure came close and even matched the biggest online spending day in history, December 9th, 2008. At the end of the day, Cyber Monday sales reached $887 Million, a 5 percent increase over last year.
* Source: ComScore
The success of the day stemmed more from the increase in online shoppers, as the dollars spent per shopper actually dropped 1% to $102.19 from last year.
Of course, email marketers had a big part in driving online sales activities.
According to a Smith-Harmon Retail Email Study, the volume of holiday email marketing campaigns was up as well this year.
“…On Black Friday, 69% of major online retailers sent at least one promotional email, up from 59% in 2008, as tracked by the Retail Email Blog. On Cyber Monday, 71% sent at least one promotional email, making it both the most popular retail email day of this year and also the most popular of all-time. Last year, 70% of retailers sent email on Cyber Monday. And on Cyber Sunday, 45% of retailers sent at least one promotional email, up from 36% last year. That made Nov. 29 the biggest Sunday ever for retail email marketing…”
All in all, this is wonderful news considering that the US economy continues to struggle heading into the 2009 holidays. Holiday shopping in 2009 to-date suggests that consumer confidence is strengthening, and that confidence will certainly give a boost to 4th quarter results – making December the most wonderful time of the year indeed for American retailers.
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