Most shoppers no longer wait for the Monday after Thanksgiving, when Internet retailers traditionally put out their own doorbuster sales, to make their online holiday buys. But Cyber Monday still holds sway with those looking for a deal.
Some local stores are diving into the Cyber Monday mix for the first time, and are reporting good results.
It wasn’t until 11 a.m. that the staff at Buckhead’s Half Baked Casseroles decided to offer a 15 percent-off Cyber Monday deal. The store usually gets seven online orders a day, manager Apryl Wallace said, but by 3 p.m. Monday, it had already received 15.
“It’s been really good,” Wallace said. “We were kind of shocked.”
Half Baked Casseroles wanted to increase awareness of its website and let people know they could make online orders. Half of the sales were to customers who had never ordered online before, Wallace said, so the strategy seemed to be working.
Next year, she said, the company will probably plan its Cyber Monday sale more in advance.
At Whipstitch, a fabric store in Atlanta, Cyber Monday brought a 15 percent lift in sales, owner Deborah Moebes said. Online sales have been heavier this year than in the past, but Moebes said she offered half off her inventory on Monday as a way to move some seasonal or other fabric that had been sitting on the shelves too long.
The response, she said, has been about what she expected.
By offering some newer items at a lower price, Moebes was able to entice shoppers to spend a little bit more and also buy the fabric she wanted to get rid of. That frees up more money for her to spend on other goods.
Overall, online shopping is rising, and Cyber Monday sales are higher than they were in 2011. According to data from IBM Smarter Commerce, at 6 p.m., Cyber Monday sales were up 26.6 percent over the same time period in 2011.
Chase Holiday Pulse data show that online sales from Thursday to Sunday rose 27 percent, while online sales throughout the year were up 14.9 percent. The number of transactions shoppers made online also rose, but the data showed the average ticket — the amount shoppers spent per checkout — was down.
That could indicate that shoppers are spending more online but buying lower-cost items, the report said.
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