With disappointing Black Friday sales, retailers pin hopes on Cyber Monday

Global Business

The National Retail Federation is reporting that 5.1 million fewer people were out shopping on Black Friday, traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year in the United States.

One possible reason for the decline is that more people are shopping online and waiting for today, a day online retailers call Cyber Monday. CCTV America’s Mark Niu reported this story from Mountain View, California.

Cyber Monday’s online sales surpassed Black Friday’s online shopping for the first time last year, and it’s expected to pull in even more this year.

“I enjoy going online more, because it’s more convenient, I can do it at home. I usually have a bunch of windows open to compare everything,” said a man on street.

According to a survey from technology consulting company Accenture, holiday shopping via computer and smartphone are both up at least 16 percent from last year. Amazon in particular continues to rake in a bigger share.

BuyVia now has nearly a million downloads and even a special Cyber Monday app. The company’s network of shopping experts scour the web for the best deals on reputable products, even factoring in shipping and taxes.

“With Cyber Monday, they typically can adjust prices up to the last minute. So a lot of times they’ll get more aggressive with products that are “leftovers” from black Friday or other products that they’ve brought in for the holiday. But again, you have a lot more items to choose from,” said Norman Fong, co-founder of BuyVia.

BuyVia can even notify shoppers of special deals within their particular area and compare prices in stores using QR codes. But some consumers still say Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are literally “not that big a deal.”

“We’ve done some analysis, there are products that are aggressively priced on Black Friday and Cyber Monday where they won’t reach the same plateau for about six months. Roughly 75 percent of the products, we find similar deals within the next two weeks or so, so just keep an eye out for them,” Fong said.

According to a report by IBM, smartphones accounted for more than a third of all Black Friday web traffic while tablets actually drove greater sales – all tools that will play an even greater role in determining whether Cyber Monday is a success.


Dan Stefan of Privco discusses Cyber Monday

CCTV America interviewed Dan Stefan, senior IPO analyst form Privco, about the success of Cyber Monday.