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Monday, December 1, 2014

Is Cyber Monday passe?

     Today used to be a big deal for online retailers.  With most people still having dial up at home online shoppers waited till they went back to work on the Monday after Thanksgiving to use their employers cable speed connections to do their online shopping.  Now with most of us having fiber optic connections at home the online shopping starts on Thanksgiving or even earlier.  Employers hopefully appreciate the fact that workers may actually do some work today rather than surfing the internet for bargains.
     If Cyber Monday is outdated now it seems as if Black Friday is also giving way to online shopping.  The need to wait outside a store at 3 am in the cold is giving way to shopping in the comfort of your own home on your computer.  This year Black Friday sales were down 4 percent from last year as the online shopping increased that day by over 9 percent.  Amazon (20 years old this year) even saw a 24 percent increase for the 2 day holiday over the same time last year.  Look for UPS and Fed Ex stock to rise.
    Not to be out done we have also seen the development of Small Business Saturday and Giving Tuesday.  Seem that the amount of cash spent or donated in the next month  makes every group vying not to be left out of the season's spending.  Is it only a matter of time until pet stores have a Wednesday "Buy Your Pet a Holiday Gift" day?  When will we run out of special holiday buying designated days?  Will the competition for special days lead to trademarking the days?
   

   Remember when the holiday purchases were made from the Sears Wish Book?  Arriving in October this method of purchasing was the way I remember my Mother making holiday shopping easy.  Kids would leaf through the catalog so many times that the pages were "dog eared" by the time we made our final selections around Thanksgiving.  The boxes would be delivered by the mail man and left on the front porch a week or two later.  Just don't get caught shaking the boxes to try to determine what each one contained!  Sears still does the Wish Book but it is now only online.  

P.S.
     It will be interested to see how all the overflow parking with be done at the Columbia Mall this year with the new housing on the spaces that used to be the overflow parking in years past.  Another reason why I even avoid the Mall more in December than I usually do.

3 comments:

Adam Paul said...

My Mall in Columbia parking secret is to park on the lot adjacent to the Whole Foods and then walk across the pedestrian bridge over LPP. It isn't as close as the actual mall spaces, but it is far less congested, making an "easy in, easy out" experience.

duanestclair said...

Good idea. I think I'll try this.

bosoxbrent said...

Toys R Us and Target mailed out a Toy Wish List catalog in mid-November this year. My almost 3 year old went crazy looking at it. In fact, she has it with her stack of books and looks through it several times a week.

Maybe I'm old school, but I think the idea is still pretty genius and something that parents appreciate. Taking a kid to the toy store can be overwhelming for both the parent and child. At least with the wish list catalog, the child's attention is a little more focused, as opposed trying to articulate which toy you would like from aisles and aisles of options.

Believe it or not, she was able to narrow it down to 3 toys she as interested in. Not so bad for someone her age.