Taking a cue from Black Friday, retailers stretch Cyber Monday deals

Dive Brief:

The deal "creep" witnessed during Black Friday now appears to be happening to Cyber Monday as well.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced Monday that it is moving up “Cyber Monday” to the Sunday after Thanksgiving, with deals starting at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Target also announced Monday that it will offer a 15% discount on all items on its site Cyber Monday, a first for the retailer. Amazon meanwhile has already launched many seasonal deals, with more starting on Thanksgiving night.
Wal-Mart’s e-commerce sales growth in general is lackluster, providing just 0.15% of Q3 sales growth, below the 0.3% in 2014, even as the retailer has allocated billions of dollars to boost online sales. E-commerce sales are just 3% of the retailer’s overall sales.

Dive Insight:

While Cyber Monday is a concept that’s been around for more than a decade—begun when workers came back to work after the Thanksgiving holiday and used their offices' high-speed Internet connection to shop—these days high-speed Internet connections are par for the course for many, if not most, consumers.

Some say that Cyber Monday isn’t necessarily the best day to find the lowest prices or the best deals of the season, either. New research from Adobe found that Thanksgiving and even brick-and-mortar’s favorite, Black Friday, trumps Cyber Monday for consumer deals. And a GOBankingRates study last year found that Cyber Monday deals are so “unimpressive” that the day doesn’t even deserve its own name.

Still, for shoppers who hate Black Friday, online shopping in general can be a good alternative.

The 4% or so lift in overall retail sales expected this holiday season will be dwarfed by the growth in online sales, according to Forrester Research, with e-commerce growing some 11% in November and December.

Cyber Monday remains a big draw for online shoppers, according to Forrester. And perhaps it will remain a draw even beyond Monday. In any case, it will likely continue to be a “day” stretched by retailers over a few days now that Cyber Monday is no longer dictated by consumers’ access to the web, which is now available not just at home as well as work, but on mobile as well.

"Cyber Monday has pivoted from the 'shopping at work' trend to a promotional opportunity for retailers that gives consumers a chance to save money on their holiday shopping," Scot Wingo, executive chairman of e-commerce solutions company ChannelAdvisor, told USA Today.