Retail Holiday Countdown Begins: One Month to Prepare for "eDay,"
The New Cyber Monday
Coremetrics industry benchmark predicts online cash registers
will ring the loudest on Monday, December 4
San Mateo, Calif.—November 6 , 2006—Coremetrics™, the leading provider of on-demand web analytics and precision marketing solutions, today released data dispelling the marketing myth that "Cyber Monday," the Monday after Thanksgiving, is the largest online shopping day of the holiday season. With 2006 U.S. holiday eCommerce forecast data from its LIVEmark benchmarking service, Coremetrics advises retailers to expect their highest traffic day to be Cyber Monday, and the top sales day one week after Cyber Monday, which falls this year on December 4th. Coremetrics predicts that sales on this date, which it has coined "eDay," will be 19% higher than "Cyber Monday," and that 2006 overall holiday retail sales will increase 16% over last year's holiday season.
Art Apostol, Director of Marketing at SkyMall, a multichannel direct marketer and provider of the popular in-flight SkyMall catalog, supports Coremetrics' prediction. "Historical LIVEmark data from Coremetrics showed us that 2005 holiday sales on eDay were up to 22% larger than those on Cyber Monday," said Apostol. "Armed with this data, we were better able to prepare the creative and timing of our 2006 holiday campaigns and anticipate we will capture the interest of our core target audience at just the right time to maximize sales this year."
The upcoming holiday season is a critical time for many U.S. retailers. Most retailers generate 20-40% of their annual eCommerce revenues and profits during the holiday season. According to analyst firm Forrester Research, online retail sales in Q4 2006 should reach $27 billion. After eDay, Coremetrics predicts the next four largest days for online retail sales will be the Monday one week after eDay, the Wednesday after eDay, the Tuesday after eDay, and the Tuesday one week after eDay. With December signaling the frenzied countdown to gift giving, online retailers should execute online marketing campaigns to drive shopping behavior around these key dates.
Coremetrics top online marketing recommendations:
- During the weeks before and after eDay, launch personalized email campaigns, increase paid search daily budgets and per-click bids, and optimize shopping comparison site placements
- One week following eDay, use these same marketing channels to communicate a sense of urgency and drive customers to shop prior to inventory limitations, high shipment costs, or inability to deliver on time
- Two weeks after eDay, highlight the store finder, in-store pick up and in-store promotions to drive sales from last-minute shoppers who might not want to risk shipping delays, and reduce your paid search daily budgets and click prices back to pre-holiday levels
- Throughout the holiday season
- Promote top gifts by gender and price to help fulfill wishes for the hard-to-shop- for person on your list
- Highlight e-gift certificates, which make great last minute gifts for friends and family
- Engage in word of mouth holiday promotions and product reviews through social networks, consumer-generated reviews and blogs
- Ensure cross-channel consistency by marketing all products on line- the web is a key research tool for holiday shopping
"Coremetrics LIVEmark was designed to provide online businesses with a clear understanding of business performance, relative to peers and competitors, so they can effectively allocate marketing spend, anticipate trends, and make strategic decisions about site, marketing and merchandising efforts to increase sales," said Joe Davis, president and CEO of Coremetrics. "Our holiday forecast is intended to help eCommerce merchants optimize returns from the 2006 holiday shopping season by highlighting peak traffic and order value patterns, enabling them to build up to eDay for maximum impact."
Forecast Methodology
Coremetrics' forecast is based on actual data from its LIVEmark benchmarking service. Coremetrics projected the 2006 holiday season based on the growth curve of the 2005 holiday season and on 2006 year-to-date data. Coremetrics believes forecasts based on LIVEmark data will be extraordinarily accurate because Coremetrics relies on "bottoms-up" forecasting based on detailed, up-to-date data from individual companies. By contrast, research analysts traditionally do "top-down" forecasting based on broad macro trends that may be difficult to predict far in advance.
About LIVEmark
The LIVEmark benchmarking service, launched in March 2005, currently consists of over 200 of the largest eCommerce brands in the United States and the United Kingdom. LIVEmark currently provides thirty-five benchmarking metrics. The metrics are available for the entire group of LIVEmark participants, and for fourteen unique retail sub-verticals. LIVEmark is not exclusive to Coremetrics clients; it is available to the entire retail industry. In addition, Coremetrics is expanding LIVEmark to the travel, financial services, and content verticals. Organizations who wish to access LIVEmark data must contribute their own data, anonymously, to the benchmark.
About Coremetrics
Coremetrics is the leading provider of on-demand web analytics and precision marketing solutions, offering the industry's only web analytics platform that captures and stores all customer and visitor clickstream activity to build LIVE (Lifetime Individual Visitor Experience) Profiles. Representing the single most accurate and comprehensive source of online customer data, LIVE Profiles serve as the foundation for all successful digital marketing initiatives. Coremetrics services more than 850 brands and has delivered over $300 million in documented ROI in the past two years. Coremetrics is also the integrated web analytics solution for IBM WebSphere Commerce, delivering a best-of-breed multichannel business analytics solution. The company is privately held with funding from Accel Partners, FTVentures, and Highland Capital Partners and is headquartered in San Mateo, California . To learn more about Coremetrics, visit www.coremetrics.com or call 877-721-CORE.
Coremetrics has strongly supported online privacy since its inception. To learn more, visit www.coremetrics.com/privacy.
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Coremetrics is the trademark of Coremetrics, Inc. Any other marks used in this document are trademarks or registered trademarks of the manufacturers or marketers of the products with which the marks are associated.
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