No Turn On Red

Cyber Monday is here and.. almost gone. This is a holiday created by marketers looking to capitalize online sales that may or may not one day match the phenomenon that is Black Friday. In the meantime, it still represents a day in which there area significant chunk of e-commerce sales and deep discounts.

Regardless of the hype, Cyber Monday seemingly caused an uptick in visitors to e-commerce websites throughout the industry. Web servers across the country saw their processors stretched to the limit and on-call IT technicians had their hands full. By and large, it appears that most websites were winners – with only a few retailers seeing minor downtime or sluggishness – applause and props go to the often overlooked network engineers and sysadmins who kept their servers runner.

The Cyber Monday cross hairs were aimed directly at the web servers of two retailers: J.Crew and Bloomingdale’s. Both retailers have seen significant outages today – with each website serving “System Unavailable” messages since early this afternoon.

Earlier in the year, J.Crew redeveloped their website. The site has seen problems and glitches ever since the launch. J.Crew went as far as to blame their decline in Q3 revenue on the problems they were seeing with their relaunched website. A lot of money was spent, I’m sure, on this new implementation of the website and it’s incredible to see the downtime they are still happening. Being down for a few hours on a weekday in June is bad – being down on one of the busiest days of the holiday season is unimaginable.

I don’t know what the issue is with Bloomingdale’s, but they haven’t fared much better. As with J.Crew, they’ve been serving a system error message for the better part of the afternoon. Another missed opportunity.

Additional coverage of the site outages from Computerworld and Crain’s, New York Business. I also have an on-going collection of System Maintenance screenshots over at ecommr.

Slowness and downtime issues aside, I’m hoping the rest of the industry is seeing a positive sales day. Looking forward to seeing the sales estimates over the next few days.

Did you find this post helpful? Then, you should also view these posts:

• Express Lane for December 1: Black Friday & Cyber Monday Edition (0)
• Express Lane for November 25 (0)
• Express Lane for December 4 (0)
• Black Friday design and aggressive retail marketing (0)
• Targetted American Eagle Advertising (3)

Focusing today’s Express Lane on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Here’s some articles that I’m reading that I’d like to share:

ComScore estimates e-commerce sales only up 1% on Black Friday. Retail stores only saw a 3% gain, the smallest gain in several years, according to ShopperTrak. The modest sales growth, combined with the deep discounts cutting into profit margins, has already helped send Wall Street into another daily tail spin.

For a further look into the Black Friday numbers, the National Retail Federation released a comprehensive survey into this year’s shopping habits. Seeking Alpha does a great job of digesting and breaking these numbers down.

CNBC has a good look at how Black Friday transpired at one local mall. Good snapshot into the events of this day at one New Jersey mall.

Of course, today is Cyber Monday. Retailers are offering deep discounts and free shipping. Twitter is on fire with people discussing deals and sharing links. Looking forward to seeing the sales figures for today and I wonder what impact social media will have today.

And finally, the industry did have some very tragic events occur on Black Friday when a worker was trampled to death at a Long Island Wal-Mart and two men were killed in a shooting at a California Toys R Us. Very sad and tragic events, indeed.

Did you find this post helpful? Then, you should also view these posts:

• Express Lane for November 25 (0)
• Cyber Monday rundown – slowness and outages, oh no (0)
• Express Lane for December 4 (0)
• Black Friday design and aggressive retail marketing (0)
• Wal-Mart security gaurd taken for a ride (0)

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Most American retailers are closed and weeks of preparation have led to this calm before the Black Friday storm. Tomorrow begins the heart of the Holiday shopping season, six day work weeks for retail managers, stressful weeks for the spouses of retail managers (like me!), and an all out sprint to the finish line that is Christmas day.

But instead of thinking about sales, hourly comp numbers, and keeping shelves stocked, I hope all those involved are enjoying a day with the ones they love and relaxing.

Did you find this post helpful? Then, you should also view these posts:

• Express Lane for December 1: Black Friday & Cyber Monday Edition (0)
• Cyber Monday rundown – slowness and outages, oh no (0)
• Black Friday design and aggressive retail marketing (0)
• Shop.org eHoliday 2008 Survey results released (0)
• NJ GOP Proposes Sales Tax Holiday to Spur Consumer Spending (0)

JCPenney has unveiled an intriguing viral marketing campaign called “Beware of the Doghouse”. The concept is simple: Men should get the “right” gifts for their spouses in order to avoid being put in the doghouse. There’s a website and a four minute video out there supporting this campaign.

The campaign is also supported by a Facebook tie-in that some feel is a poorly executed social media strategy. I tend to agree on this one – I’d rather see retailers put their effort into making lasting relationships with their customers, rather than gimicky Facebook apps.

However, I can’t completely fault JCPenney for their social media efforts as the retailer has also unveiled a Twitter account that, so far, seems to be a very effective use of the service. The account (@askJCP) was started last week and there seems to be a real person behind it (rather than a marketing script). Yesterday, there were a lot of Tweets about the Doghouse viral video, which does seem a bit forced and contrived. But there’s also some helpful information about the retailer and I hope they continue to engage people on Twitter and attempt to make solid relationships.

I should also point out that JCPenney uses Youtube to broadcast a weekly run down of the hot items and promotions in-store. Their channel is updated weekly and the commercials are well produced and informative. I believe the retailer started these broadcasts with the Back to School season.

I’m interested to see how the viral video plays out. I personally found it funny and remarkable well produced. So far, it’s getting some reaction on Twitter but people generally see the humor in the video. But frankly, I wonder if JCPenney had any second thoughts about rolling out their campaign so shortly after another major brand has such a nightmare on their hands last week.

Last week, the people being the ibuprofen Motrin unveiled a viral video campaign that most people agreed missed the mark. Reaction was quick and fierce and turned into a PR nightmare for the company.

I am enthused by JCPenney’s use of social media, social networks, and other available web applications. I hope that marks a long term commitment on behalf of the retailer and all of this doesn’t disappear after Christmas.

Here’s hoping other retailers continue to hop on the social media bandwagon and aim to connect with their customers online.

Did you find this post helpful? Then, you should also view these posts:

• Most Popular Posts of 2008 (0)
• Retailers and Social Media – when are they going to learn? (1)
• Kohl’s launches online-only deals; Why aren’t they using Twitter? (1)
• JC Penney: Teen sex advert not ours (0)
• Express Lane for August 7 (0)

Results from the 2008 eHoliday Survey, conducted by Shop.org and Shopzilla, have been released. The results offer an intriguing look into the state of online retail as we enter the heart of the Holiday season. Seeking Alpha has all of the results of the survey, which is a very good read for anyone involved in the industry right now. The survey paints a picture of an industry that may have worry about the economic downturn and knows it is not immune from pain.

Among the items that interested me: it appears that retailers will continue to offer free shipping promotions, but either increase the requirements to trigger the promotion or cut promotions in other areas. Free shipping is still a big deal.

When it comes to site usability and features:

Many retailers have rolled out new website features to improve the customer experience. Features like improved site search, which 42.9% of retailers added or improved since last holiday season, will help customers navigate sites more easily.

Other features, like product video (42.6%) and customer reviews (32.7%) can give shoppers more information to make buying decisions.

For price-focused shoppers, retailers have added and enhanced both clearance-sale pages (27.1%) and featured-sale pages (31.3%).

In addition, retailers continue to experiment with social networking: Nearly one-fourth (25.0%) of online retailers added a Facebook page this year.

This season will see a lot of experimenting with social media and non-traditional product detail and category pages. I’m really eager to see what retailers roll out in 2009 if these limited engagement tests pay off during the holiday season.

Did you find this post helpful? Then, you should also view these posts:

• Kohl’s launches online-only deals; Why aren’t they using Twitter? (1)
• Express Lane for November 25 (0)
• JCPenney, Twitter, YouTube and Viral Marketing (5)
• Express Lane for May 14, 2009 (0)
• Express Lane for January 12 (0)

Last week, Kohl’s discussed some of their holiday marketing strategies with the press. They plan on increasing their spending to capture a larger share of the dwindling holiday sales figures, with increased emphasis on direct mail, e-mail campaigns, and online-only sale prices.

Going into the holiday season, the retailer, which has seen Web sales increase by more than 50% so far this year, is making a big push online as well. It plans to send email blasts out to 15 million shoppers — more than double the number that it had on its electronic mailing list last year — and it’s offering one or two specially discounted items on Kohls.com every day through Christmas.

Their website has started advertising these online-only specials on their homepage, with a callout that went live this week (apparently):

This is a very interesting shift in marketing for the retailer that has, until now, always offered consistent pricing in-store and online. Their marketing campaigns even advertised this fact and, for years, coupons that were sent out to customers, in direct mail, were also good online.

Kohl’s needs to be aggressive in order to increase their market share this holiday season. This is a perfect opportunity for the retailer to utilize a service, like Twitter, to advertise these special, limited-time promotions. It is obvious that they want to aggressively promote these deals as they they are utilizing prime screen real estate to push the deal. It even appears that they already have a Twitter account, although with zero posts. They should be using this to promote the daily deals and reach more people, one-on-one.

The usage of the service would be simply – they’d just need to follow the example that other retailers have set to announce daily deals. I look at the Amazon MP3 Deal of the Day and Woot.com as two examples of retailers using the service to effectively promote daily deals.

Maybe the first step, for a retailer like Kohl’s, is the use the service to promote daily deals and then they can evolve into using the service to engage customers in conversation. I think there is always more room for retailers to use Twitter to reach their customers.

What do you think?

Did you find this post helpful? Then, you should also view these posts:

• Shop.org eHoliday 2008 Survey results released (0)
• JCPenney, Twitter, YouTube and Viral Marketing (5)
• Holiday’s Over (1)
• Handbag Planet Using Social Media to Launch Retail Store (2)
• Express Lane for November 25 (0)

On Thursday, the New Jersey Legislature is being convened in order to discuss ways that the state can deal with the current economic crisis. Today, in advance of that meeting, New Jersey Republican leaders have proposed an unprecedented 5 week sales tax holiday, right through the heart of the Holiday spending season. From the Star Ledger:

The proposal would cut the sales tax in half — to 3.5 percent — during the busiest retail buying season, Thanksgiving through Jan. 4. The sales tax in the state’s 32 Urban Enterprise Zones — areas where economic incentives, such as reduced sales taxes, are offered to encourage development — would also be cut in half, to 1.75 percent, to stimulate buying in cities.

The proposal would affect any item subject to New Jersey’s sales tax, from restaurant meals to automobiles.

Two Republican officials said it would jump-start the economy by allowing customers to pay less for merchandise and increasing retail sales.

Both parties are going to come out with ideas, some grandiose and some small, in order to deal with the economic crisis. While I am not economist, an idea like this seems like it could spur consumer spending. While it may not stop the hemorrhaging that some national retailers are going to experience this season, it may slow down losses enough, on a localized level, to help some small businesses and niche retailers get through this tough time.

That’s not to say that it is a plan without flaws. The article above estimates the loss of tax revenue to be at $500 million, which is a huge financial hit to a state that is already strapped and proposing many alternative ideas for how to raise money. Residents here have seen many ideas floated around – from tax increases, new surcharges on gasoline, and toll hikes. With decreased spending and already lower tax revenues, is now really the time to take half a billion dollars more from state revenue? Can the lower tax rate really increase consumer spending to overcome the decrease in state revenue?

My gut feeling is that the tax cut, on it’s own, will increase consumer spending on large ticket items and increase traffic to stores on the borders with other states. Businesses that will see a boost from this proposal will be car dealers and the Best Buy on Route 17 (right across the border from New York). I don’t know if, overall, the spending increase is going to be large enough to offset the decreases we are already going to see.

A sales tax decrease is only going to work if one of two things happens. First, it requires that people have money to spend. The family who isn’t making their mortgage payment probably is going to spend more now that the sales tax is reduced. The second requirement is that people want to spend the money. People may be making their bills and have money to spend, but that doesn’t mean they are going to want to spend more money just because the sales tax is slashed. They may want to take that money and put it towards other debit or savings rather than spend.

I can very well see an economic proposal coming out of New Jersey on Thursday that includes a sales tax reduction as one part of a multi-prong economic package. What else will be included, I’m not sure, but I can very realistically see the sales tax reduction as one facet of the package.

I previously talked about the economic impact of the sales tax rising from 6% to 7% in New Jersey.

Did you find this post helpful? Then, you should also view these posts:

• The impact of New Jersey’s rising sales tax (0)
• Express Lane for December 1: Black Friday & Cyber Monday Edition (0)
• Boscov’s to get 43.7 million in government loans (0)
• 6/18/06 Retail Notes, Father’s Day Edition (0)
• Wal-Mart security gaurd taken for a ride (0)

The holidays have come and gone. The six day work weeks are over for me. For two months, I was spending upwards of 65-70 hours a week out of my house, due to work and the associated commute. The chaos that is the holiday season in retail did not leave me much time to blog, as you have seen. But that is all behind us and now the industry looks towards returns, inventories, markdowns, home/white sales, and trying to get back into shape for the new year.

Everyone is getting ready to release their December results this week. After a year that was mostly up for a lot of folks, how is December going to fair? Mild weather across most of the country and high(er) inventory levels has prompted analyists to downgrade several major retailers. I’m really interested to see who the winners and losers are this Holiday season.

Was there a must-have item this year that people clamored for? I didn’t really see anything.

Was it the TMX? How many of those dolls were actually produced and sold nationally? It seemed like more made it to Ebay than to actual store shelves.

Maybe it was the PS3 or the Wii? I don’t know how much electronic retailers like Best Buy will have really benefitted from those systems, due to low supply and the fact that their numbers for FY2005 include the Xbox 360 launch. One of my contacts at Target tells me that every time they got a shipment of a new game system, their camping/outdoor department benefitted the most from the sales of tents, chairs, and other supplies for the people waiting 3+ days outside for the new systems.

Anyway, for the time being I am back and hope to amuse you with some of my thoughts on this crazy industry.

Did you find this post helpful? Then, you should also view these posts:

• Retailers See Mixed Results in June (0)
• Kohl’s launches online-only deals; Why aren’t they using Twitter? (1)
• Wal-Mart to face worker-led class-action lawsuit in New Jersey (0)
• Wal-Mart owes PA workers $78 million (0)
• Wal-Mart changes wage structure (0)