Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Mega Monday help to drive retail sales

Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Mega Monday help to drive retail sales

So-called “Cyber Monday,” on 28 November, followed “Black Friday” and a weekend of retail price cuts in the US. But experts suggest next week’s Mega Monday could be even bigger in the UK.

The period marks the beginning of the festive online shopping season and also coincides with many people’s last pay packet before Christmas. Figures released by comScore suggest online retail sales in the US jumped 26% on Black Friday this year to reach $816 million (£52m).

Black Friday was a successful day for Amazon UK as shoppers flocked online to start their Christmas shopping on November payday.

That’s according to e-commerce expert ChannelAdvisor, which analysed its customers’ same store sales on Amazon UK over the weekend and found spikes on Thursday (of a 15.92% uplift) and Friday (16.29%). However, it found that Cyber Monday was not as popular with only a 0.72% sales uplift.

Sales uplift brings Amazon traders cheer

In total, same store sales on Amazon were up 6.94% over the five days from Thursday to Monday. It added that it expected this coming Monday, dubbed Mega Monday, will be the busiest online shopping day of the year in the UK.

The British Retail Consortium also expects Monday 5 December to be this year’s peak shopping day. Looking at early forecasts, it looks like this year could also be a bumper one for online retailers, with predictions that sales will increase by 16.3% this Christmas according to the Centre for Retail Research.

According to global payment processor WorldPay and Streamline, its face-to-face division, last year (28 to 29 November 2010) delivered a 24% increase in sales volumes, with traditionally ‘higher spend’ sectors such as motoring, travel and household goods seeing the largest increase in sales.

The payment company also said turnover during this time period last year increased by a significant 63%, presenting a significant opportunity for UK retailers to attract consumers looking for the best deals.

Multichannel proposition makes gains

But last year’s uplift was not limited to e-commerce transactions: point-of-sale (PoS) transactions increased by 25%, and telephone and call centre sales grew by a staggering 137%. Furthermore, volume of transactions was not the only figure to increase – the value of sales was also significantly boosted, where business turnover grew 30% through PoS transactions. The value of sales also increased 46% through online spend and 688% through telephone and call centre

While Mega Monday is recognised for its effect on e-commerce sales, WorldPay concluded that consumers also seem to be looking for bargains on the High Street and purchasing over the phone, especially for higher value items.

Gabriel Hopkins, head of e-commerce products at WorldPay, commented: “In the run up to Christmas we always see seasonal spikes in sales and when we look at last year’s figures, this was not consigned to one day. E-commerce is set to be a key channel of sales for retailers this year, but consumers will continue to shop in-store or using other channels.

“What retailers need to look at is which channel is popular depending on what is being purchased and we can learn this by looking back at 2010. Consumers are going to be cautious in this economic climate but presents will still be bought and consumers will seek out bargains. Retailers need to be ready to capture their interest.”