Retailers Set Sights on Bumper Cyber Monday Haul

Wednesday, October 9, 2019 - 14:17 by Graham Miller

A study published by Yes Marketing has suggested that Cyber Monday could be bigger than ever this year, with the popularity of safe shopping online helping to catapult this sales event into the stratosphere.

Analysts revealed that last year there was a 57 per cent uptick in conversion rates reported on Cyber Monday, which shows that consumers are not only browsing for deals in their millions but are also much more likely to actually buy something.

Cyber Monday, which falls just after Black Friday, was originally identified as the day on which more people used e-commerce sites to make pre-Christmas purchases than at any other point in the year. Since this trend was noted, retailers began to create promotions to coincide with it and capitalise on growing consumer interest.

In 2019, a number of factors will play a role in determining whether or not customers decide to go through with a purchase on the retail sites they visit. Free delivery will be at the top of the agenda, with 32 per cent of conversions predicted to come down to whether or not this is available as an option when people reach the checkout.

Interestingly enough, the study also found that the marketing emails sent to shoppers ahead of Cyber Monday would be more effective if they did not make mention of a particular offer in the subject line but were rather worded generically in order to entice people to open them. This suggests that the claims of the power of personalisation in the world of e-commerce are perhaps a little exaggerated, even if many consumers still like to receive bespoke deals.

The likelihood of a record-breaking Cyber Monday will be welcome news for outlets of all kinds which have been suffering sluggish sales in recent months.