Cyber Monday came and went, but online retailers had a much better day than last year, marketing-optimization firm Coremetrics has found.
According to the company, which received Cyber Monday sales data from many of its 2,000 online-retail partners, including Macys.com, Office Depot, Nordstrom, and Abercrombie & Fitch, to name a few, sales were up 13.7 percent, compared to those during the post-Thanksgiving Monday last year.
Consumers also spent more per Cyber Monday order than they did last year. In a Tuesday report, the company said consumers this year spent an average of $180.03 per order in 2009, compared to $130.24 in 2008. That increase represented a 38.2 percent gain in sales over the prior year.
While consumers spent more, they also got more for their money. Coremetrics found that consumers bought almost 30 percent more items per order this year, compared to Cyber Monday 2008.
The success of online sales on Monday was felt across several sectors. Coremetrics said apparel and jewelry retailers enjoyed the "biggest jumps in the average dollar amount consumers spent per online order, up 26.4 percent and 14.3 percent, respectively." Department stores attracted a whopping 33 percent more consumers this year than they did on Cyber Monday 2008, Coremetrics found.
See also: Cyber Monday bargain hunters out earlier
I don't get "Black Friday," and I don't get the people who actually spend Black Friday at the mall. (Also, when did "doorbuster" become part of the argot? I missed the memo on that one). I do get the people who do their holiday shopping online, though, and there are more of them every day.
Here are the latest numbers from ComScore, which says that online holiday shopping is up a bit this year. That's not saying a lot, since last year's sales were soft. But for the record, sales are up 3 percent so far, and Web sales were up 11 percent on Black Friday.
(Credit:
ComScore)
But note that consumers say they're spending less overall than they did less year: they told interviewers they intend to spend 8 percent less than they did in 2008.
Not surprisingly, people spent a whole lot of time on the Web's most popular retail sites on Friday: Traffic at Amazon, Wal-Mart, Apple, Target, and Best Buy, sites were all up, ComScore reports.
Next up: Dutiful reporting on "Cyber Monday," tomorrow's artificial construct. Still, I'm not complaining. This is way better than trudging out to the mall for the annual "interview of shoppers in a parking lot" piece that newspapers still insist on assigning.
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I have avoided Black Friday every year. Somehow, the idea of baying, greedy crowds fighting for $100 off some piece of electronica seems like the equivalent of searching for stray wax in a stranger's ears.
But there's a Best Buy opposite the greatest Starbucks in the world--at Marin City, Calif. (one-time home of Tupac Shakur). And, struggling after an interesting Thanksgiving meal of, well, too much good food, wine, and secrets told after the good food and wine, I parked outside my Starbucks and was drawn by the fascination of the blue and yellow.
A large sign outside Best Buy read: "Line starts here," but there was no one standing there. Had people simply ignored the sign, smashed down the doors, and stormed the building, in search of the weekend's dream of a larger, flatter screen?
I walked gingerly toward the front door, fearing I would immediately see tense bodies and twisted faces fighting over the last box with Samsung written on it. Instead, a chap in the blue polo shirt bid me good morning. Inside, it seemed like any other day at Best Buy.
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My receipt, complete with markings from the Best Buy magic marker.
(Credit: Chris Matyszczyk)People milled around with seemingly little purpose. Best Buy employees stood around, one or two stifling a little yawn, a couple of others not bothering with the stifling.
A few people hovered over the MacBook display. Should they buy the MacBook Pro, or the little white MacBook, on offer for less than $1,000?
Most of the aisles had no more than one person in them. Wandering around was as simple and comfortable as a Wednesday stroll on the beach. But finally I saw a line. What was it that was drawing so many people (at least 15) to one place?
Ah, yes, these were the excited folks trying to line up an appointment with the Geek Squad. Names were being called out. Satisfaction was being doled out.
Then I remembered I needed some ink for my printer. I wafted over to the aisle and noticed that the price of an Hewlett-Packard double pack of black ink and color had actually gone up since I'd last bought some. There didn't seem to be any special offer on this one.
Should I buy it anyway? Wouldn't it be a pain to stand in line?
Then I looked up and saw that the line at the cash registers consisted of precisely three people. Two of them were together. As I paid my $34.87, the clerk had particularly bleary eyes.
"Crazy day, huh?" I said to him.
"No," he said, in an entirely friendly way.
"Is this usual?" I asked, somewhat confused.
"Oh, yeah. I'm happy," he replied.
After he'd taken the time to tell me that the man in front of me in line had enjoyed precisely the same security code on his Amex card as mine, and after another Best Buy employee had marked my receipt with a special marker, I disappeared to Starbucks.
One of the great baristas of our time, Kershina, told me that she'd opened the store at 5 a.m. and there had been around 200 people outside Best Buy at that time.
Now, just after 9, there was no one. It was just another day in the Marin City firmament. How typical this was of the rest of America, I have no idea. However, as I took my lattes back to my car, a couple were piling their own two-pack of boxes, both with an LG logo, into theirs. They seemed strangely relaxed.
Updated at 2:50 p.m. PST to include quotes from senators and names of retailers that do business with Vertrue, Webloyalty, and Affinion.
Words like "scam," "fraud," and "arrest" filled the air during a Senate hearing on Tuesday that focused on the controversial marketing companies that allegedly dupe consumers into paying monthly fees to join online loyalty programs.
Ray France, a U.S. Army veteran, testifies at a Senate hearing about how consumers are duped into paying monthly fees to join online loyalty programs.
(Credit: U.S. Senate Commerce committee)Vertrue, Webloyalty, and Affinion generated more than $1.4 billion by "misleading" Web shoppers, said members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which called the hearing. Lawmakers saved their harshest rebuke for Web retailers that accepted big money--a combined sum of $792 million--to share their customers' credit-card information with the marketers.
Senate investigators launched their six-month inquiry by examining complaints from people who discovered mysterious charges on their credit card bill. For years, Web shoppers have complained that they were signed up to some Web loyalty program without their knowledge and were charged fees until they discovered the problem and complained. Some paid fees for years.
The government says the investigation shows that Webloyalty, Affinion, and Vertrue "trick" consumers into entering their e-mail address just before they complete purchases at sites such as Orbitz, Priceline.com, Buy.com, 1-800 Flowers, Continental Airlines, Fandango, and Classmates.com. A Web ad, which many consumers say appears to be from the retailer, offers them cash back or coupon if they key in their e-mail address.
Many of those who complained say they don't fear the ad because they aren't being asked to turn over credit-card information, according to the Senate report. But buried in the ad's fine print is notification that by entering their e-mail address, the shopper is agreeing to join a loyalty program and allowing the store to authorize marketers to charge their card each month, between $9 and $12.
"When people shop online, they have the right to expect that the stores they entrust with their credit card and other personal information will not share it," said Sen. John Rockefeller, (D-W.V.), the committee's chairman. "What's happening is many online merchants have decided to betray their customers' trust...fine print is the (biggest) scam of all time."
The way the government lays out its findings, it appears the loyalty programs are profiting off of the reluctance of many consumers to read fine print and check their credit card statements, and the blind trust many have in the stores where they shop.
Vertrue and Webloyalty issued statements saying they have changed their practices and have opted to require consumers to key in some credit card or other information to enroll into one of the company's membership programs. Expert witnesses and government officials said during the hearing that these alterations don't go far enough.
Perhaps most importantly, witnesses also said the best and only way to defeat the problem is to make it unlawful for retailers to ever sell their customers' personal information.
Affinion representatives were not immediately available for interview.
Rockefeller noted during the hearing that Vertrue and Webloyalty dropped some of their business practices only after Senate investigators were well into their probe. He also remarked that some of the retail companies, including U.S. Airways, had informed him that they they had ceased doing business with the marketers. He told the audience at the hearing and those who watched via a Webcast that he anticipated Continental Airlines would do the same.
The government's report provides a jaw-dropping amount of information that shows:
• Managers at Webloyalty, Affinion, and Vertrue are fully aware that most of the people signing up for memberships are unaware that they are doing it."The more aggressively an e-commerce company is willing to market Affinion, Vertrue, or Webloyalty's membership clubs to its customers, the more money it will earn," the Senate Commerce committee wrote in the report.• Their programs are designed to mislead consumers into signing up.
• Retailers doing business with the companies are also aware that customers are likely to be angered once they notice the charges but do it because they are paid big bucks. Classmates.com has pocketed $70 million from partnering with the all three companies, according to the report. The government says that 88 retailers have made more than $1 million through the partnerships with e-loyalty programs, while 19 have made more than $10 million.
Another reason e-tailers risk alienating customers is that some of the e-loyalty companies insulate the Web stores from customer complaints. They call these complaints "customer noise." To illustrate this, the Senate committee included excerpts from a letter from a Priceline shopper who said she was charged for a loyalty membership for over a year without her knowledge.
The governments investigation will continue. According to a Senate staffer, Rockefeller will invite the CEOs of Webloyalty, Affinion, and Vertrue to testify at another hearing, which will likely be held sometime early next year.
To watch a replay of the Senate hearing go here.
The names of the retailers that partnered with Affinion, Webloyalty, or Vertrue.
(Credit: U.S. Senate Commerce Committee)
Google introduced a new Commerce Search tool for retailers on Wednesday to try to make the online shopping experience easier for consumers as the holidays approach.
According to Google, Web users spend an "average of just eight seconds" on a retail site before deciding whether to stay. With that in mind, Commerce Search aims to improve search on retailers' individual sites.
With Commerce Search, shoppers can sort data by "category, price, brand, or any other attribute," Google said. Retailers can also offer special attention for specific products to draw consumer attention. The tool includes built-in spell-check and synonyms to help ensure people find the items they're looking for, regardless of how they spell or identify products.
Commerce Search will be hosted in the cloud. The cost to retailers is based on the number of products and the searches conducted annually.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Amazon's acquisition of shoes-and-more retailer Zappos is complete, the e-commerce giant said in a release Monday. The company in July had announced its intent to make the purchase, for about $850 million in cash and stock.
Zappos, which made a name for itself based on outside-the-box customer service principles, will stay independent from the Amazon.com brand and will continue to operate out of its Las Vegas headquarters.
Numbers released by J.P. Morgan Research in conjunction with the acquisition announcement predict that Zappos will post moderate, single-digit growth for the 2009 fiscal year after raking in $635 million in revenues last year.
Sony Music Entertainment's catalog is coming to indie music retail site Amie Street, in the New York-based start-up's first major label deal.
But here's the catch: Sony's catalog will not be participating in the "dynamic pricing" model that's been Amie Street's trademark--unpopular songs are the cheapest, and the price rises as a song is downloaded more. Instead, Sony songs will be available for a flat 69 cents, 99 cents, or $1.29 based on popularity.
"It wasn't a hard decision for us," Amie Street co-founder Josh Boltuch told CNET News. "This isn't affecting all the other dynamically priced music on the site." He noted that RED, the indie music distribution company owned by Sony, already offers its songs on Amie Street through the dynamic-pricing model. "Sony Music obviously has the option to experiment with dynamic pricing at their discretion," Boltuch added. "Clearly we would love to do that with them."
This isn't the first time that an indie music retailer has had to compromise to ink a major-label deal. Sony was also the first major label to bring its catalog--well, its "classic" back catalog--to subscription site eMusic. But the deal resulted in eMusic raising some of its prices in tandem.
Amie Street, which pitches itself as a way to discover as well as purchase new music, made major headlines last year when it was the only place on the Web to buy songs recorded by Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the call-girl-slash-aspiring-pop-star at the center of the Eliot Spitzer scandal.
Riding the success of the iPhone, AT&T, apart from trying to keep the phone exclusive, seems to be learning from Apple in another way--its retail stores.
The company announced Monday that it has done a major makeover to more than 2,200 retail locations across the country. The aim is to provide consumers and small-business customers with a better hands-on experience when shopping for devices and service plans.
According to the telecom giant, the overhaul brings a refreshed, more intuitive organization of products and services. For example, all wireless devices now show up on new power-enabled displays, making it easier for customers to experience and compare features such as touch screens versus full QWERTY keyboards.
These store enhancements are also part of the company's effort to prepare for the nationwide introduction of Netbook data plans and the availability of AT&T ConnecTech services. These services include a nationwide next-day in-home service and 24-7 remote support for Netbook computers.
Personally, I think the makeover is good news. The last time I was at an AT&T store, there was not much else to do about a phone besides look at it.
However, I'd rather see AT&T overhaul its sketchy 3G connection for the iPhone, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area. Now that would make great news.
NEW YORK--Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was coy about exactly why he isn't thrilled with Google's attempt to forge its way into the digital publishing business.
"We have strong opinions about that issue which I'm not going to share," Bezos said to interviewer Steven Levy at the Wired Business Conference. "But, clearly, that settlement in our opinion needs to be revisited and it is being revisited."
In a court battle rife with twists, turns, and delays, Google has been attempting to push forward its Book Search initiative, which could potentially give the Mountain View, Calif., tech giant exclusive access to digital editions of some out-of-print books. That could, as Levy pointed out, get in the way of Amazon's goal of offering every book ever printed in every language on the Kindle and its new, bigger Kindle DX sibling. And it sounds like that's where Amazon has some beef.
"There are many forces of work looking at that and saying it doesn't seem right that you should do something, kind of get a prize for violating a large series of copyrights," Bezos said.
Bezos was speaking at the conference, which had the subtitle "Disruptive by Design," to talk about Amazon's legacy of shaking up the retail industry and now potentially the publishing industry with its Kindle e-reader device. Most of his talk was focused on the sort of business advice that one might expect a tech company to provide to a room full of big-business and old-media types ("be stubborn on the big things and very flexible on the details," "you have to be willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time"), but he did get a few minutes to talk about how he thinks the Kindle is changing things.
In New York, a longtime global hub of the beleaguered publishing, media, and advertising industries, what he had to say was particularly weighted. The Kindle, after all, is doing extremely well: Bezos said that out of the entire offering of 300,000 books available for both the Kindle and physical retail on Amazon, that the Kindle's sales are 35 percent of physical books' after only 18 months on the market.
"Internally, we are startled and astonished by that statistic," Bezos said.
But he wouldn't promise that the device will singlehandedly save the newspaper industry.
"I never want to convey that I think we have a sinecure with any particular product offering, but if we execute well and other companies that do these kinds of electronic readers, that is going to be part of what happens with newspapers," Bezos said. "And I do think there are going to be multiple companies competing with reading devices and I think there's room for multiple winners."
Like much of the speakers at the Wired Business Conference, Bezos talked extensively about how things have changed over the past few years, and how it demands a deep rethinking of business practices in all industries. In this case, he was talking about the media business.
"Unfortunately, there's a collision of several major issues happening to the magazine, newspaper, and publishing industries all at once, including most recently the recession which has taken a bad situation and made it much worse," he said. "But the biggest structural problem in my opinion is there's just so much supply of advertising space. That's a fundamental problem that's not going to go away."
But at the same time--in keeping with the conference's theme--there's an extraordinary amount of opportunity, Bezos insisted.
"Some of the most important barriers to entry in that industry have been dissolved, and they've been dissolved permanently."
E-commerce giant Amazon.com plans to close three facilities, as the company rejiggers its distribution network, according to an Associated Press report Thursday.
Distribution facilities in Munster, Ind., Red Rock, Nev., and Chambersburg, Pa., will be shuttered, with the 210 affected employees offered a chance to either transfer to nearby facilities, or terminate their Amazon employment and receive eight weeks of severance, according to the report.
Representatives from Amazon.com were not immediately available for comment.
Amazon opened the Munster facility in late 2007, but with its closure, it will have two distribution centers in Indiana. The closure of the Red Rock facility, opened in 2001, will leave it with one center in Nevada. And the closure of the Chambersburg site, opened in 2003, will result in Amazon operating three sites in Pennsylvania, according to the report.
