It’s a bit of a relief that Christmas comes but once a year. Yet from an ecommerce perspective, its timing and exactly where it falls change the character of Christmas each year. And in 2012, Christmas falls on a Tuesday. That will mean that later this week, unless items are despatched with an expedited service, delivery of the goods before the big day won’t happen. The last recommended First Class postage day is from Royal Mail is the 20th.
It’s also a rather strange thing that Mondays have emerged in recent years as the busy, busy shopping days online in December. I wonder why this is and imagine armies of British workers dossing in their offices, buying online. I also imagine it’s convenient for mums and others to do the Christmas shopping at home with a quiet house and no prying eyes. I wonder too if it’s because weekends have been spent out and about researching and window shopping on the High Street and on Monday it’s time to hunt down the best deal.
There’s also been quite a lot of talk about consumer trends in 2012 being different to previous years because of even greater pressure on household budgets. There is a quite a lot of discussion that spending in total will be lower and the rush will be later. Certainly Mega/Cyber Monday (whilst being the biggest ever) was not as gargantuan as many of the pundits predicted.
That’s why the logic for making today, the 17th Decemeber, the biggest ecommerce day of the year is compelling. In lots of ways it’s the last chance saloon. You can buy and rest easy that your goodies will arrive. We’ll see what the retailers report soon enough. But how’s it looking for you today?
(Of course, if I don’t get any comments I shall assume you’re all too busy manically packing your bumper sales!)
6 Responses
As a leading provider of order fulfilment services for online retailers i can safely say: “Expect the unexpected”
In the last 3 weeks alone we have encountered Cyber Monday, Mega Monday and yesterday we encountered “Mammoth Monday”.
The nation of online shoppers appear to be getting later and Mammoth Monday saw an uplift of over 10% versus the previous two Mondays.
Tuesday 18th is already panning out to be a record day on orders processed as our clients enjoy a last minute rush on sales.
Anyway – time to check on the elves and ensure the reindeers are fed & watered !
we avoid the last 2 weeks of December on ebay like a dose of the clap,
its just not worth all the whinging moaning DSR dings, where is my item ,returns chargebacks and general mayhem,
roll on january so we can get on with just being mildly suicidal, rather than the full blown version at Christmas
Not to mention December 17th was also Free Shipping Day! Last year even more revenue from online shopping was made on that day than on Black Friday of the same year!
https://sellerdynamics.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/free-shipping-day/