It’s November, and with Black Friday and Cyber Monday just around the corner, consumers are looking forward to some of the biggest savings of the year. Whether through brick and mortar stores, online retailers, or both, consumers will be browsing products throughout the month to snap up the best bargains, come November 27 (Black Friday) and November 30 (Cyber Monday).

For affiliates and merchants, it’s important to start your campaigns early and to get the word out about your promotions in order to capitalize on impeding traffic. And while many people associate Cyber Monday as strictly online sales, and Black Friday solely about offline sales, the truth is, both days are important to your online sales goals.

In fact, while the majority of consumers identify Black Friday weekend as the time to buy big ticket items, research shows that Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales are actually quite similar, suggesting that shoppers don’t separate the two in terms of online and offline sales.

A recent study by the Yahoo Insights team supports this finding, concluding that online sales on Black Friday were not too far behind sales that occurred on Cyber Monday. The study reveals that online retailers experienced a greater percentage increase in conversions on Black Friday, than Cyber Monday.

Trends identify Black Friday/Cyber Monday as having the best deals on personal, home or office and electronic products. Location is also important, with more than 50% of consumers shopping from their workplace, for added convenience.
This year, due to the still recovering economy, Black Friday sales ads are expected to offer shoppers a selection of huge bargains and deals on even more products and services. Free shipping offers are also especially popular during Cyber Monday, with 75% of customers preferring to shop with an online retailer that offers this incentive.

So with mere weeks left until two of the biggest shopping days of the year, merchants and affiliates should definitely make sure their marketing campaigns are ready. Consumers will begin product/service browsing now, so make sure your deals and free shipping promotions take front and center. And remember, online sales are not just about Cyber Monday anymore; Black Friday is going to be equally important to your marketing campaign success.

As the cold air begins to flow, merchants are on the lookout for what kind of online shopping trends are on the horizon for this 2009 season. October is half over, and if you haven’t started to prep your Q4 campaigns already, it’s time to get started!

This year, it is estimated that US retail e-commerce sales (excluding travel) will total $132 billion, down 0.4% from 2008. eMarketer forecasts online sales will begin to rebound in 2010 and hit full stride in 2011 if the recession is to end in 2009 as economists have predicted.

Trends suggest consumers will be spending less this holiday season making it more of challenge for retailers to attract ideal customers to both brick and mortar and online stores. That, of course does not mean there will be no shoppers, but it means that consumers will be more selective. That simply means that this season, more than ever, it is important to stand out, and make educated decisions about where advertising money should be spent.

Trends also show a progressive shift in consumer research, and there are more value shoppers who will browse research and compare products on the Internet. Consumers are using social media more to search for deals and coupons via Twitter, Facebook. So, marketers may want to channel more resources into that avenue.

In preparation for the 2009 holiday shopping season, online retailers looking to create the most effective e-commerce site should take the following steps:

1. Optimize website with holiday focused content
2. Improve pay per click (PPC) advertising campaigns for holidays
3. Driving more sales through the Comparison Shopping Engines
4. Create more customer loyalty programs
5. Humanizing customer service
6. Increase free shipping offers
7. Offer exclusive holiday coupons
8. Plan long term on how to reach consumer AFTER the holiday season have passed

For more techniques, tools, tips and great resources to make sure you’re getting every last drop out of your affiliate marketing campaigns, be sure to come back to the Share Results blog. Until November 27, Share Results.com is throwing a big Holiday Blogging Event, packed with all kinds of seasonal information regarding trends for Q4, tips to get the best deals, consumer trends and how best optimize your affiliate marketing campaigns.

Some affiliates and merchants may not have asked this question, but it’s definitely a good time to start thinking about it. A recent article on Marketing Vox confirms what is already known: Women, in particular, those with children under 18 in the US, spend quite a bit of time on the internet. These US moms devote an average of three hours online every day. Just what are they doing for those three hours? Well, they are logging into email, paying bills, checking the news and weather, as well as comparing prices on products (click to enlarge):

In the past, some of our blog posts on Share Results have highlighted the importance of considering various ethnic communities when it comes to affiliate marketing. MV demonstrates that a web and mobile user’s gender and ethnic background is highly important, as the same article cites that “60% of moms use text messaging, and African-American moms and Hispanic moms text more than Caucasian moms.”

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A recent report from Statistics Canada shows that Canadians seem to be warming up to the idea of online shopping. In comparison to 2005, StatsCan found that in 2007 there was a 61% increase in Canadians making purchases online. This resulted in “$12.8 billion worth of orders”. The Canadians with the biggest expense account was, not surprisingly, Albertans. They made up half of the number of online shoppers from Canada in 2007.

Canadians customers like to shop knowing two things. The first is that they’ll get a great bargain. The second is that if they’re shopping online, they want to make sure they can know everything about a product, right up to how a piece of clothing will fit on them.

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