Cyber Monday specials

Is anyone planning on doing them or had success previously?

[p5gal5]

It's just a week away...the supposed Holy Grail of the holiday season: Cyber Monday. I imagine I should've thought about this earlier than a week beforehand. <cough> Anyway...

Is anyone doing anything special for this day? Or have experience from previous years to indicate that sales/specials work well? I will periodically run tests for things like free shipping, x% off today's orders, etc., but have never really experienced any compelling statistics about such offers. Easy usability, good content, and product diversification seem to trump any such offers, but I don't want to "miss the boat" - especially when "Cyber Monday" is getting so much press already.

The conflicting reports on the matter don't help much, either.

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Retail Joy
[emarketer.com...]
"Nearly six in 10 retailers said they were not conducting any special promotions to encourage online sales."

...retailers, not e-tailers...and then I see something like this:

Retailers Expect Cyber Monday To Be More Promotional Than Ever
"According to the eHoliday Survey conducted by BizRate Research. The survey said about 72.2% of online retailers are planning a special promotion for Cyber Monday, up from 42.7% two years ago."

...

40% of online stores are going to run a special promotion. No, 70%! Do I hear 80? 100%? Just in - 100% percent of ecommerce sites are running specials on Cyber Monday (+ or - 100%)

What's a competitive ecommerce site to do?

[edited by: minnapple at 1:22 am (utc) on Nov. 21, 2007]
[edit reason] No non-authority links please [/edit]

[CernyM]

Cyber Monday started as Shop.org's online answer to Black Friday B&M sales.

It hasn't gotten as much traction from buyers in the past as it has from press types.

We're not planning anything special for it.

[p5gal5]

Yes, I know it was just a PR stunt from a few years ago (not complaining, trust me); however, it's getting so much press that I wonder if online shoppers will be trolling for deals. Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy thing.

[pbradish]

We started our campaign today with a 15% sitewide discount on our less popular brands/products for one of our ecommerce websites and sales have trippled.

[fiu88]

Not evening considering it...If the product is in demand , people will buy anyways...if you have excess inventory...then a sale would be in order...
All of our competitors seem to be doing the same...with the recent slowdown in traffic, it makes sense to try to maintain margins...btw..black monday was never a big deal anyways..

[gmac17]

We will see twice as many sales on Monday as we had on Friday. "Cyber Monday" may be a pr invention, but one based on truth.

[HRoth]

I would think it would depend on how you compete. If it's a manufactured item that's fairly popular and you are competing in terms of price, then I guess a sale would be in order. If it's a unique item, then I don't see any purpose in having a sale unless your stuff is overpriced. The bulk of my sales now are for items that are unique, so I never compete in terms of price. My stuff is already priced too low (I'm in the process of raising prices), so I only mark things down when I want to discontinue them.

[CernyM]

We will see twice as many sales on Monday as we had on Friday. "Cyber Monday" may be a pr invention, but one based on truth.

Perhaps - but that may be because Friday wasn't that huge a day.

We may do twice as much on Monday as we did on Friday, but if that matches what we did today - I'll eat my hat.

[fiu88]

So how was everyones cyber Monday?
Sales for us were really good...but, they kind of evened everything out considering Thursday-Sunday was kind of soft...

[HRoth]

It was dead during the day but then perked up during the evening. I think a lot of people must have taken off work. I got about 20% more traffic than any other day this month, about that many more orders, but about 50% more in gross sales. This is the first time that a Cybermonday has actually been a Cybermonday for me. Usually it is just an ordinary day. I wonder if people come to model the behavior described on the news.