“With Christmas only a week away…, online retailers were staring at disappointing holiday sales results. There was some hope for a late-season buying spree as 40.2% of consumers said they planned to finish their gift buying online, up from 34.9% a year earlier,” according to the National Retail Federation’s 2008 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey.
Despite the deep discounts, ‘brick-and-mortar’ retailers failed to lure in buyers this holiday season, with sales falling across most categories. During our economies most disappointing times since the Carter administration, the ‘brick-and-mortar’ retail stores show “foot traffic falling 24% and sales falling 6.5% compared to a year ago” as reported by ShopperTrak Corp. While 2008 online retail sales dropped slightly overall from the 2007 holiday season, it still produced record numbers and was the savior of many small businesses struggling to keep their doors open.
Online retail sales on the Monday after Thanksgiving increased 15% to $846 million—the second highest online shopping day in history, as the number of buyers rose 22%, comScore reported.
Having a small business, whether you provide products or services, is exponentially stronger during down economies like ours, when you provide your prospects more opportunities to find, research, and buy your products or services. Creating a dynamic online experience for your prospects and existing clientele is the best way to maximize your company exposure and sales opportunities. Your prospects can learn and buy from you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without limitations of your store or office hours, weather conditions, and more.
“Online spending over the most recent weekend was clearly substantially heavier than the corresponding weekend nearest Christmas last year, which suggests that many consumers opted for the cozier confines of online shopping rather than having to brave the severe cold and snowstorms affecting much of the northern half of the country,” says comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.
And while the obvious is staring most small businesses in the face, I continue to speak with business owners whom are still dropping thousands of dollars a month into printed yellow pages and other directories. As reported by MarketingSherpa.com, in a survey polling consumers between the ages of 18 and 55, they found that only 37% referred to the yellow pages when looking for a product or service. This means that 63% of the consumers polled went online for their product or service needs rather than pulling out their local printed yellow pages.
Did you know? Yellow page publishers have predicted the demise of printed yellow pages by the end of 2010.
The lifeline of your small business during these difficult economic times may very well be the technology you’ve been avoiding for years now. Traditional marketing, while useful when executed properly, is far more expensive, requires long commitments to be successful, and yields far less desirable results when looking at overall returns on investment. Now is the time to broaden your vision, look to the future and see what the online world has to offer you and your business. It’s up to you.
Wow, interesting information. Thanks for the post!