Sales, Sales & Weekend Shipping

2 More Observations on the Q4 Extravaganza this year:

Sales, Sales & Sales

I have seen the best performance from merchants this year coming from those who aggressively pushed promotions out to consumers. With the well documented recession (possible depression), it has also been well documented that consumers were, and even now on 12/18, are bargain hunting this year. Consumers are using their build up of internet shopping experience to hit comparison sites and discount retailers (Walmat, Target, etc) in an effort to find bargains, and stretch their dollar further. You can see where I pushed this concept of bargain hunting back on 9/16’s Making Cents in a Nonsensical World. Since that time, retailers who found ways to push free shipping, or who were aggressive in repeatedly slamming out site wide discounts had the best revenue streams and ROI performance. Retailers who did nothing or went about business as usual, typically had a soft season.

Shopping is not over – This Weekend

I would encourage any retailer who can still ship in time for 12/24, to make this blatantly clear to anyone who comes close to the seller’s products. Consumers can’t waste their time researching and guessing at this point, they need to know easily and quickly (within 5-10 seconds of glancing at the site is best).

Also, a monkey wrench I didn’t see coming was the way this weekend is effectively falling right in the middle of a standard delivery cycle (right outside of 3 business days to Christmas). This is a big deal as the weekend is conceptually falling at such a point, that it makes it difficult to navigate through last minute shipping possibilities. If looking for a way to offer quick shipping, I have heard that UPS is offering some special services to pick up packages this Saturday at standard rates. If you use UPS, you may want to check in on this.

December 18th, 2008