Nov 25, 2009
Days before the start of the traditional holiday shopping season, retailers in the United States are gearing up to entice online bargain hunters with promotions, free shipping offers and new marketing tools.
Amazon.com, the country's largest online retailer, launched its Black Friday deals page Monday, saying it is offering customers "huge savings on thousands of hot holiday products."
Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, which falls on Nov. 26 this year, when major retailers in the United States traditionally offer big discounts to help kick off the holiday shopping season.
Retail giant Walmart, which has been waging an online price war with Amazon.com recently, on Monday announced that it will offer nearly 50 online-only specials on Thanksgiving Day including electronics, video games and toys, with savings up to 40 percent.
New survey also showed that online retailers in the country are planning to increase their promotions for Cyber Monday, a term referring to the Monday after Thanksgiving when consumers rush to make purchases online that they are not able to make in stores.
Nearly nine in 10 U.S. retailers will have a special promotion for Cyber Monday this year, up from 83.7 percent last year and 72.2 percent in 2007, according to survey results released Monday by Shop.org, a division of the U.S. National Retail Federation.
The most popular promotions are expected to be specific deals, one-day sales and free shipping on all purchases, the survey found.
An earlier study released in October by Shop.org indicated that in addition to promotions such as free shipping, online retailers are turning to social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter as a more cost-effective alternative to traditional advertising.
About 47.1 percent of retailers surveyed by the study said they will be increasing their use of social networking tools this holiday season and more than half of retailers said they have added or improved their Facebook and Twitter pages.
"Retailers know that times are tough so they have created promotions and incentives to help Americans save money this holiday season," Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org, said.
"From free shipping to Facebook, online retailers are combining new initiatives with tried-and-true tactics to make their companies stand out," Silverman added.
Online sales are projected to be a bright spot for the U.S. retail industry in this holiday season.
The U.S. National Retail Federation has predicted that holiday retail industry sales will drop 1 percent this year to 437.6 billion U.S. dollars.
Online sales, though accounting for a small percentage of total holiday retail sales, are expected to perform better than previous year.
U.S. online retail spending for the November and December period this year will reach 28.8 billion dollars, up 3 percent from a year ago, market research firm comScore said in a report on Tuesday.
The modest growth rate represents an improvement compared to last season's 3-percent decline, but remains well below the growth rates of 20 percent or higher seen in previous years, comScore noted.
"The beginning of the online holiday shopping season has gotten off to a positive start, which is a nice improvement over the slightly negative growth rates we've experienced through much of 2009," comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said in a statement.
"Nonetheless, online spending this holiday season will likely be tempered by the stark reality of 10-percent unemployment and less disposable income in many consumers' wallets," Fulgoni cautioned.