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Mobile is Making Cyber Monday Obsolete

In 2005, Cyber Monday debuted to raise awareness of holiday shopping on the internet when that kind of thing was still unique. Retailers with shopping portals extended Thanksgiving weekend sales to anyone who could shop online at work to avoid the Black Friday crowds at brick-and-mortar stores.
Now, Cyber Monday’s clock may be running out, thanks in part to its own success, says Internet Retailer magazine. The company compiled shopping trends and data from several sources to learn that although Cyber Monday still makes plenty of money for retailers, consumers found bargains and bought earlier in the 2016 holiday shopping season because retailers either moved up their online deals or extended them to other busy shopping days closer to Christmas.
What prompted the retailers to spread out these deals was the consumers’ move to mobile devices for much of their shopping. These shoppers not only are buying, but also are researching purchases more than ever with mobile devices throughout the year, often while they’re in-store, Internet Retailer says. Retailers anticipated a boom in mobile web shopping and prepared accordingly.
They weren’t disappointed. Overall, mobile purchases on smartphones and tablets over the five-day holiday period (Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday) grew 32 percent over same-period sales last year, said Tracy Maple, Internet Retailer managing editor, in a webinar reporting the magazine’s research. And one-day retail sales via mobile devices topped $1 billion for the first time this year – twice – on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
But mobile web sales on Black Friday exceeded those on Cyber Monday by 100 million, a significant change. Thanksgiving Day and Thanksgiving weekend mobile web sales also experienced a marked increase over previous years.
“Many consumers are back at work on Cyber Monday and shopping on their desktops,” Maple said. “And … anything where time or inventory is limited, such as flash sales or deals that only last until they sell out, will do well on mobile as consumers can make purchases on the go. That’s more likely to happen on Black Friday than Cyber Monday.”
Across the board, mobile is more comfortable for shoppers each year, she added. Smartphones are larger and more powerful, and retailers’ mobile applications and mobile-optimized sites are much improved. Because of this, mobile devices drove more than half the visits to Internet Retailer’s top 100 e-retailers during the 2016 five-day shopping period.
So, how is mobile helping your company this holiday? Regardless of industry or company size, a mobile-optimized website or enterprise mobile app strategy is integral to success – even survival – in the marketplace. Perficient helps design, build, and deploy mobile sites and software that enhance a company’s market presence and grow revenue. Our custom development experience spans a wide range of solutions and mobile app platforms. And Perficient’s service spans the mobile life cycle – from strategy through user experience design and application testing on through to roll-out.
Visit Perficient’s Mobile page and find out how we can help your company make the most of this technology.

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David Sheets

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