Cyber Monday Survival
Thanksgiving - and by extension, Black Friday and Cyber Monday - are over for another year, with the only major holidays left on the calendar being Christmas and New Year’s.
Black Friday Recap
In the last blog post, we talked about how Apple was breaking from shopping tradition by not offering discounts on their products, but Apple gift cards instead.
While consumers may not like this, it’s actually a very smart move on their part: it creates a sense of elitism of Apple being “too good for discounts”, it doesn’t leave money in shoppers’ wallets that they can spend elsewhere, and it gives people a reason to visit Apple again…and shop for more.
Cyber Monday
It should come as no surprise that Cyber Monday is a huge shopping day in the United States. While some may revel in the excitement that comes along with lining up before dawn and physically seeing products massively marked down, it’s not always practical.
Instead, more and more people are electing to stay home on the Friday and do their shopping a few days later. Stores are still anxious to move their products, and people are willing to buy them but they want to do so in relative comfort. Thus, Cyber Monday.
Apple’s Record Sales
Apple shoppers put up some big numbers today, with iOS accounting for 12.8% of online sales, compared to only 2.8% for Android. They also spent more than Android users, with an average of $122.82 per order ($114.24 for Android). The final nail in the coffin was iOS leading overall traffic to Android by a figure of 20.3% to 8.9%.
While mobile sales are strong and gaining in popularity, shoppers tend to use them more for browsing than purchasing, pulling out their tablets to hit the “pay” button.
Products Without A Home?
But perhaps the tidbit of information that not many saw coming, especially with iOS’s strong numbers on Cyber Monday, is that Apple was the top hit for “return policy” for online searches. This gives the implication that while Apple may be heavily shopped for, it’s also one of the most unwanted gifts this season.
