Holiday Sales versus Holiday Discounts: Are You Giving Too Much For The Same Revenue?

Holiday shopping is still in full swing even with the economic slowdown. Black Friday has shown no signs of a decrease in consumer spending as thousands flocked to their favorite retail destinations to get the best deal for their money.

The National Retail Federation, adding up sales Thursday through Saturday and projected sales for Sunday, said that each shopper spent about 7 percent more this year than last year. Shoppers spent an average of $372.57 Friday though Sunday, according to the federation, a trade group.

Strength of online sales can even be seen via this reuters article that said, PayPal, an online payments service owned by eBay, saw almost 34 percent more transactions this Black Friday than a year earlier.

PayPal saw sales rise 26 percent on Black Friday, the day after the Thanksgiving holiday that traditionally kicks off the U.S. holiday shopping season. PayPal said its sales numbers reflected 12 percent of all U.S. e-commerce.

Black Friday is best known as the day consumers crowd shopping malls, while greater online traffic is expected three days later on "Cyber Monday," when consumers use faster Internet connections at the office to make purchases.

Overall Web sales during the U.S. holiday season are expected to be flat at about $29 billion this year, according to tracking firm comScore.

Amazon.com said Apple Inc's iPod touch was the top-selling electronics item on Friday morning, followed by a Canon Inc PowerShot camera. Wii Fit and the Wii console were the top-selling items in the video game category, while the LeapFrog Tag Reading System was the best-selling toy.

But are we giving too much away? Analysts said the discounts that drew in shoppers over the weekend were so steep that many ailing chains might be no better off in the long run.

“You’re looking at discounts of 50 to 70 percent off,” said Matthew Katz, managing director in the retail practice of Alix Partners, an advisory and restructuring firm. “You have to sell two to three times as much to break even.”

What will the Holiday Season be like for Online Retailers?

More than half of online retailers (56.1%) expect their holiday sales to increase at least 15% over last year - although last year's survey had found that three-fourths (77.5%) expected their sales to grow more than 15%.



Overall results show that “Retailers will be heavily promotional to attract shoppers on a budget, but have also invested in new site features to improve the online buying experience," according to executive director of Shop.org - retailers will suffer from the economic slowdown but nevertheless they are believed to be resilient.

What are retailers doing to manage the economic slowdown this holiday season? What online strategies will be applicable this year?

1. Majority of retailers (78%) plan to offer free shipping with conditions* at some point during the holiday season, consistent with last year’s levels.
2. Compensating for increased shipping costs by renegotiating terms with shipping providers (40.4%), closely managing company headcount (33.3%), and reducing other promotions (15.8%).
3. One-fifth (21.3%) of retailers will require a higher purchase amount for customers to be eligible for free shipping, and one in ten (10.6%) will cut back on usage of free shipping with no conditions.
4. 42.9% of retailers added or improved their website since last holiday season, to help customers navigate sites more easily.
5. Websites now provide product video (42.6%) and customer reviews (32.7%) can give shoppers more information to make buying decisions.
6. Website enhancements in clearance-sale pages (27.1%) and featured-sale pages (31.3%).
7. Nearly one-fourth (25.0%) of online retailers added a Facebook page this year

What are buyer behaviors (consumer patterns) this holiday season?

1. Consumers acknowledge that 24-hour shopping convenience is one of the main reasons they choose to buy online (58.6% this year vs. 58.5% last year).
2. Shoppers’ other top reasons for buying online instead of in stores include not wanting to fight crowds (41.1%), easy price comparisons (36.4%), and free shipping (33.3%).
3. Nearly one in four shoppers (23.1%) says they are spending more online due to high gas prices, more than double the number which said the same last year (9.0%).
4. One in five shoppers (20.1%) say they simply have less money to spend this year for the holidays, while 10.6% cited a poor economy as a factor.
5. One in ten (11.0%) plans to spend less online this year due to high shipping charges.

Findings shown here are from the eHoliday Study conducted by BizRate Research, a Shopzilla company, for Shop.org, surveyed 2,040 online buyers (defined as anyone who has made an online purchase in the last 12 months) from September 29 to October 3, 2008, as well as 60 online retailers from October 1-20, 2008.

If You Were PaperMaster What Would You Do?

Okay you're a genius engineer, considered one of the premier chip designers with IBM. You're so good in fact that you became vice president of microprocessor technology development in IBM. But you happen to have so much more potential, so Apple across the street offer you a position as well. Steve Jobs' company offers you a vice president position for device hardware engineering.



Possibly there was a lot of fine print here not mentioned in the news but one thing led to another and you take the position with Apple - probably more money.

But when you start your first day, you get the shock of your life - you get sued! IBM claims that you have violated prior employment agreement by accepting a position at a competitor and may divulge IBM's trade secrets to Apple.

This is what happened to Mark Papermaster. He has reportedly has authored several papers on PowerPC chip development and is considered a "top expert in Power architecture and technology." Papermaster's expertise in system design--putting together the entire package of processor, chipset, and the rest of the guts that form a computer--could serve him well at a company that prides itself on soup-to-nuts design.

It's such a shame as Steve Jobs had such high praises for this guy. “Mark is a seasoned leader and is going to be an excellent addition to our senior management team,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.

So now he's in big trouble. Wonder if he gets paid? That's like being in between a rock and hard place. Management sure is a difficult spot to be in. It's not like you're just an engineer, but being in a position like that allows you permission to privy information/ sensitive information that makes it complicated in what may otherwise be such simple terms as work transition

Yahoo CEOs Daughter Tells Guard To Google Her

Now it's rather ironic when Yahoo CEOs daughter says "Google me, you dumb f**k!" Not just because it's very rude and unkind, it's also promoting the competition. It's unfortunate that Courtenay Temel had to be in the drunken state to have blurted out those words. Ending up in this rather messy lawsuit.

Isn't Yahoo already in enough trouble as it is? Last October 30, Jaroslaw Jarczok claims he was working security last August at 4 in the morning at PureNightclub when Courtenay was "quite intoxicated due to alcohol and/or chemical or other substances."

Apparently it got out of hand because Terry Semel's daughter was eventually handcuffed to which she said, "Do you even know who I am, f**king idiot?...Google me, you dumb f**k."

And that will go down in history as one of the worst things she could have said, ruining not only herself but her dad as well. Haven't heard about Semel as Yahoo's CEO in business terms, it's such a shame his name is dragged in mud as a result of his daughter's drunken escapade.