Showing posts with label Holiday Season. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holiday Season. Show all posts

What to Expect From Black Friday and the Upcoming Holiday Shopping Season

Posted by Manish Pandey On Wednesday, 12 October 2011 0 comments

Gazing into Santa’s crystal ball, the retail experts point to the strong likelihood of weak sales during the rapidly approaching holiday shopping season. And with one aspect of the season, there’s no guesswork necessary: It’s all but guaranteed that shoppers will have their pick of more and more Black Friday sales—more Cyber Monday promotions as well.

The consensus seems to be that retail sales will be tepid for the upcoming winter holidays—no shocker given the sorry financial state of the American middle class. The economists at Deloitte predict a 2.5% to 3% increase over last year’s holiday sales, well below 2010′s 5.9% holiday sales growth over the prior year. The research firm ShopperTrak, cited by Daily Finance and the Wall Street Journal among others, also foresees a modest holiday period for retailers, with sales rising perhaps 3% over 2010′s season.

What’s particularly interesting is that sales revenues are expected to increase incrementally at the same time that foot traffic—the number of actual people hitting the stores—will decrease, reportedly by 2.2%. For stores, the trick to getting more money out of fewer shoppers is keeping prices high, rather than resorting to deep discounting of the past, and to attract wealthier customers who have more (or any) disposable money to burn.

Of course, retailers are bound to discount some goods heavily in the coming months—it’s a classic way to boost sales, after all—but what can consumers expect in terms of deals?

The experts at dealnews released their Black Friday predictions, and the crystal ball is showing 60″ HDTVs for under $700 and a 52% price drop on 17″ laptops compared to last season, among other things.

Meanwhile, ready or not, retailers have already begun playing up the holiday sales promotions. Many stores started lining shelves with Christmas items and displays weeks ago.

Whereas Black Friday—the crowd-crazed, doorbuster-filled epic of shopping following Thanksgiving Day—used to be a single day, it’s transforming into an entire preseason for the winter holiday shopping season. Last year, there were Black Friday-type sales promoted before and after actual Black Friday, and consumers can expect to see the phrase “Black Friday” used frequently (and creatively) throughout the upcoming shopping season.

Black Friday’s online offspring, Cyber Monday, is expanding as well. Last season, Walmart hosted an entire “Cyber Week” of online deals, rather than a single day. And over this past weekend, Sears announced an early season “Cyber Monday Unleashed” sale, in which the promo code UNLEASHED granted an extra 10% or 15% off online purchases of clothing, jewelry, and other select goods that were already on sale.

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Early-Bird Black Friday Predictions

Posted by Manish Pandey On Monday, 19 September 2011 0 comments

The first Black Friday e-mail alerts are already appearing in my inbox. The day-after-Thanksgiving holiday shopping event has morphed into a season of its own, running from November through Christmas in an effort to get consumers spending. So what will the deals look like this year?

First of all, they probably won't be as amazing as those of, say, two years ago, says Dan de Grandpre, founder of DealNews, which reports on bargains year-round. When the recession first hit, he explains, retailers had large inventories on hand and were forced to slash prices drastically to reduce them. They've become more cautious since then, so inventories are smaller and they are not under the same intense pressure to move merchandise.

Michael Brim, Webmaster for BFAds, which posts Black Friday ads as they are leaked or released, adds that stores may not have a lot of markup left to cut, owing to year-round efforts to lure customers in a down economy. "The stores are hurting too," he says.

As a result, de Grandpre generally expects to see this year's shopping season resemble a game of chicken, with consumers waiting as long as possible for bargains and with retailers holding the line on prices as long as they can. That might mean that the best prices won't be offered on Black Friday or Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend).

Even so, stores (both online and brick-and-mortar) will still be competing for customers. Here's the deal landscape in several popular categories.
Big Screens, Bigger Deals

HDTVs remain trusty holiday deal magnets. When it comes to bargains, however, size definitely matters in this category--and judging from recent history, you're more likely to find deals in larger screen sizes. Both de Grandpre and Brim expect the biggest price cuts to appear in the 50- to 55-inch HDTV category, as prices for 42- to 46-inch sets have already pretty much reached rock bottom in the last year. DealNews' Black Friday predictions anticipate seeing at least one brand-name 55-inch LCD-TV going for $800 (although it won't be a top-tier brand, and it likely won't be LED-backlit).

One HDTV caveat: If you're contemplating jumping on the 3D TV bandwagon, de Grandpre recommends thinking again. "This is definitely the year to avoid 3D," he says. For starters, content is scarce, and you need a 3D Blu-ray player (and probably extra 3D glasses at $100 or so a pop, since most sets come with only one pair) to play what little there is.

Also, right now the price premium for a 3D set is, on average, about $300 for current sets. That's a significant surcharge--and it increases if you look at prices for good-quality sets that are six months old. De Grandpre reckons that if you're willing to wait on 3D, the current price of a new 3D set will buy you two sets: a fairly recent non-3D set now, and a 3D set next year, when prices will likely tumble.

Blu-ray players and movies are another Black Friday draw. Brim anticipates promotions offering current Blu-ray Disc movies, which typically run $25 to $35, for as little as $10. De Grandpre agrees, and has even greater expectations for players: He expects to see a basic Blu-ray player for under $50, and a player supporting Netflix on demand for as little as $69.
Netbooks a No-Show

Last year's netbook mania seems like a distant memory--nobody expects them to figure prominently in the 2010 Black Friday landscape. "Netbooks have kind of fallen off," says Brim. And de Grandpre says that deals for full-blown laptops, a few of which surfaced last year, are more likely. The $300 or so that you might have paid for a netbook last year will likely buy a big-screen portable with a Core 2 Duo processor, an optical drive, and other goodies this year. That isn't an unprecedented price point, as we saw a couple of $200 and $300 laptops in 2009.

But pickings may be slim for fans of highly portable netbook alternatives. Apple doesn't discount its iPad models, and other tablets are too new to be discounted (and, let's face it, not yet in huge demand). However, de Grandpre speculates that with iPads now available in major big-box stores, we might see some attractive bundles--for example, an iPad being sold with a heavily discounted iTunes gift card. This is certainly something to look out for if you're interested in the iPad as an e-book reader.

In fact, e-readers are also likely to figure heavily in the Black Friday landscape, with similar bundles a distinct possibility (for instance, a reader with book gift certificates from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or other booksellers).

Brim notes that bundles have been commonplace in the game console market for some time now, and he says that he wouldn't be surprised to see ones that include the Kinect motion controller, "maybe in a package with the Xbox 360."

Smartphones are popular gifts, and de Grandpre expects to see promotions from Amazon and the major wireless carriers. As with the iPad, however, don't expect to see the iPhone 4 sold at a discount. Apple has never discounted its phones, and nobody expects the company to start now. If recent history is any indication, Apple is far more likely to offer small Black Friday discounts on its computers, laptops, and iPods.
Look Online First

One last piece of Black Friday advice: As mentioned earlier, it's difficult to tell whether shopping on Black Friday will net you the best deals, but de Grandpre has become a firm believer in skipping the 2 a.m. doorbuster madness by shopping online. Last year, pretty much all the deals in stores were available on the Web too, he says. If you have to get up early to grab a limited-quantity deal, at least you can do so in the comfort of your home.
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Email marketers expect 2011 holiday season to top last year

Posted by Manish Pandey On Thursday, 28 July 2011 0 comments

With this year's email click and open rates outperforming 2010's numbers by 23% and 11%, respectively, marketers should prepare for a stronger holiday season than last year, said Chad White, research director at email service provider Responsys. Brands should begin to plan their holiday email campaigns now, given those expectations, he said.

“The smart marketers, frankly, have already started planning for the holidays,” White said.

Planning should involve pre-holiday messaging to streamline end-of-the-year campaigns, such as asking subscribers to update their email preferences and sending surveys to gauge interest in segmented holiday efforts, White said. Marketers can also use pre-holiday emails to sign consumers up for holiday print catalogs, he added.

“Because of print prices and postage being what they are, it's a more tactical advantage in terms of cost savings,” he said.

August and September are the key months for email marketers to conduct their pre-holiday preparations and clean up email programs, because consumers may not unsubscribe in November after being inundated with a higher volume of marketing emails, White said.

“You get into ‘last straw' territory in November,” he said, noting that the consumer would likely have considered unsubscribing prior to a holiday campaign.

The average retailer began its holiday email campaign on October 17 of last year, according to Responsys' “Retail Guide to the Holiday Season 2011” report. The average start date was October 19 in 2009 and October 28 two years prior.

“Retailers are trying to move forward, trying to be first,” said White. “Last year, we saw that Black Friday deals and offers were made available much earlier in November than in past years.”

The volume of emails sent between November 1 and the Friday after Thanksgiving that mentioned “Black Friday” increased 68% year-over-year, according to the report.

The study was based on the responses of 104 top retailers.

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