Cyber Monday - What opportunities are there for your business?

Is your business ready for “Click Frenzy”, which actually starts next Tuesday (20 November) at 7pm to coincide with Cyber Monday in the US and runs for 24 hours.  Click Frenzy is Australia’s first online-only mega sale and you can register at www.clickfrenzy.com.au.

Cyber Monday is a relatively new American post-Thanksgiving sales trend.  At this stage over 100 Australian retailers have signed up to the Australian version, Click Frenzy to offer discounts of up to 90%.  Cyber Monday (www.cybermonday.com) started in 2005 after retailers noticed a spike in traffic after Black Friday sales.

So far, Australian retailers such as Myer, Target and online retailer The Iconic are some of the names participating in Click Frenzy, a joint venture designed to accompany the newest American sales tradition of Cyber Monday – a day set aside by retailers to promote online-only deals.

This all started in the United States with Black Friday, which is usually the biggest day of the retail calendar, Cyber Monday is carving out its own niche and last year the day generated $US1.2 billion in sales and looks set to become a truly global phenomemon.

Should you participate or shouldn’t you?  Each business is different and the Neto consulting team are not generally advocates of heavy discounting, so if your strategy is to avoid heavy discounting you might want to think twice before joining the Click Frenzy stampede.  However, with the increasing focus on this event it could be a fantastic opportunity to increase the exposure of your business to new customers.  For any retailers joining this 24 hour sale frenzy we recommend you give some consideration to your back end logistics.  Sometimes there is nothing more damaging for a business than to put yourself out there and then be unable to satisfy the huge customer demand. 

In part, the campaign is a defensive move. Many American websites are offering cheap shipping rates to Australia to try and appeal to the Australian online consumer.  Given the increasing debate over how much international stores are "stealing" local retail trade, local involvement in Cyber Monday is seen as an important event in their sales calendar to remain relevant and competitive.

We recommend that you do some research to see if this global sales event fits with your business strategy.  But based on our research to date of consumer trends I think Australian online retailers are going to need to ‘watch this space’ very carefully.

We would love to hear your feedback, thoughts and questions on this topic so please do not hesitate to post your comments on our blog so we can generate some diverse discussion for everyone