Cyber Monday Online Sales Fall For the First Time Ever (cnbc.com) 95
Consumers logged online Monday and spent $10.7 billion, marking a 1.4% decrease from year-ago levels, according to data released Tuesday by Adobe Analytics. This year's tally marks the first time that Adobe has tracked a slowdown in spending on major shopping days. CNBC reports: Despite the slowdown, Adobe expects the entire holiday season will see record-breaking e-commerce activity, as shoppers spread out their dollars over more days. So far, from Nov. 1 through Cyber Monday, consumers in the United States have spent $109.8 billion online, which is up 11.9% year over year, Adobe said. And on 22 of those days, consumers purchased more than $3 billion worth of goods, another new milestone, it said. Adobe anticipates digital sales from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31 will hit $207 billion, which would represent record gains of 10%.
Last Cyber Monday, retailers rang up $10.8 billion in sales on the web, as more people stayed home and avoided shopping in retailers' stores due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. It marked a record day for e-commerce purchases in the U.S. The slight deceleration in online spending follows a similar pattern that played out on Thanksgiving Day and on Black Friday this year, as shoppers appeared to have spread out their dollars onto more days rather than squeezing their shopping into "Cyber Week."
Retailers rang up $8.9 billion in sales online on Black Friday, down from the record of about $9 billion spent on the Friday after Thanksgiving a year earlier, Adobe said. And on Thanksgiving Day, consumers spent $5.1 billion on the internet, flat from year-ago levels. [...] Shopper traffic on Black Friday was up 47.5% compared with year-ago levels, but was still down 28.3% versus 2019, according to separate data from Sensormatic Solutions.
Last Cyber Monday, retailers rang up $10.8 billion in sales on the web, as more people stayed home and avoided shopping in retailers' stores due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. It marked a record day for e-commerce purchases in the U.S. The slight deceleration in online spending follows a similar pattern that played out on Thanksgiving Day and on Black Friday this year, as shoppers appeared to have spread out their dollars onto more days rather than squeezing their shopping into "Cyber Week."
Retailers rang up $8.9 billion in sales online on Black Friday, down from the record of about $9 billion spent on the Friday after Thanksgiving a year earlier, Adobe said. And on Thanksgiving Day, consumers spent $5.1 billion on the internet, flat from year-ago levels. [...] Shopper traffic on Black Friday was up 47.5% compared with year-ago levels, but was still down 28.3% versus 2019, according to separate data from Sensormatic Solutions.
Easy to explain (Score:4, Interesting)
Cyber Monday Online Sales Fall For the First Time Ever
I'm full up on Cyber Mondays and if I need another one, I can just drive over to Walmart ...
Re: Easy to explain (Score:2)
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I've been avoiding it for a few years now. (Score:3)
Economy is in the toilet (Score:3)
Its all just hype and cheap garbage. Too many no deal, deals.
The point of this announcement is that the economy is in the toilet.
Note that sales didn't droop this time last year when we were in Covid lockdown, so that's not really the root cause.
Does anyone have good info on what the root cause might be?
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Generally, a shortage of workers willing to work for the pay offered under the conditions offered. People don't want to get sick and die, but companies don't really care until the workers simply walk off the job. It's not mandatory quarantines doing it, people are choosing not to work, for their health. We've had pandemics before, these patterns are well understood by people who believe in science.
Also, more people have been dying recently, contributing to the worker shortage. People who die leave money to
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A USB keyboard for $6.50 = cheap Chinese junk. They're doing you a favor by not shipping it. Save your money for something that will last longer than 3 months.
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What a load of shit. Contrary to your doomer beliefs, working people are not dropping dead of Covid in large numbers. It really only hits hard for the old, infirm, obese, chronically unhealthy, etc. The average American worker has moved on from Covid, choosing to either get vaccinated or not. One way or another we'll all eventually get Covid, and those of us who are vaccinated will likely have an easier time of it.
So no, people are not dying on the job nor are they afraid to work due to Covid. That's just n
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Thing is? At least speaking for America right now, the economy isn't really "in the toilet" so much as in a state where we know someone's just pressing down the handle to flush it.
A lot of people were in relatively good financial positions from all the pandemic stimulus that went on. (Look how many people were able to dodge paying any rent for about a year... and how many others found ways to claim one of those small business assistance loans? I saw a LOT of people creating their own businesses based on th
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Maybe the retailers' business model sucks.
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I saw a special on an iced cider.
It was for $89.
For the same one I bought for $49 last year.
How about ... NO!?
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Nobody can quite figure out what the problem is though.
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In 205, we had "Heck of a job, Brownie!"
2021 is the year of "Let's Go Brandon!"
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In 205, we had "Heck of a job, Brownie!"
2021 is the year of "Let's Go Brandon!"
Congrats! It would seem you're at least 1,816 years old ...
Re:Economy is in the toilet (Score:5, Funny)
Does anyone have good info on what the root cause might be?
No matter how good of a deal they may be, there’s only so many TVs you can install in a bathroom before it starts getting weird.
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The King, Elvis, would beg to differ.
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I found some good hosting / vps deals, also got myself a new laptop (Lenovo Legion 7). And on a none IT note, finally got my mountain bike ordered as well (A giant Talon 3).
I don't purchase randomly, only on what I have been eyeing for a while, and only if there are good deals to be had. Just so happened that deals did happen for me this time.
It does not matter if it was Cyber Monday or Black Friday or some other deal day. If it's something am looking for, and it's at a good price, I will pull the trigger a
Re:Economy is in the toilet (Score:5, Insightful)
Sad how giving people half-truths just makes them less informed. Read the article:
So, the root cause is that people are shopping more this year, and not waiting until black friday to do it. Everybody told them to shop early to avoid possible delays, and the retailers no longer wait to start their "sales" (real or phony). That is the story.
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No, do the math. Inflation has been 4%-6% this year, which is less than the 10% increase in November internet sales. And inflation for food and gas was especially high. Those are vital goods, but that means inflation in the manufactured goods that people buy over the internet (primarily NOT food or gas) has been less than that.
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Anyways, I do worry about 2022 being worse. Right now inflation is counterbalanced by increasing asset values, and the job market is extremely strong.
Now imagine we have a market correction or worse, which would also harm employment which really hurts people. That would certainly reduce inflation, but leave most p
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Math is hurd.
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So, the root cause is that people are shopping more this year, and not waiting until black friday to do it. Everybody told them to shop early to avoid possible delays, and the retailers no longer wait to start their "sales" (real or phony). That is the story.
This. The only people who are truly affected by depressed Black Friday or Cyber Monday numbers are people whose bonus or merit increase is predicated on "get Thanksgiving sales numbers up x% YoY". Which I'm sure was in goal plans for some people.
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Excessive CEO and senior exec payouts? I note that profitability is way up, but it's mostly going to them, not to workers.
Sales volume is pretty strong in dollars (Score:2)
Mind you not the economy is great. During the pandemic the 1% saw their wealth rise by around 4 trillion dollars which is money that's just gone from the economy. 1% of the population cannot possibly spend that much money when it's acquired in less than 2 years.
Even despite that the holiday season
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It's mostly that people have figured out that Cyber Monday and Black Friday are a bunch of hype and most of the items on "sale" are actually at regular price if not marked up. The retailers have been doing this for the past few years now and it finally caught up to them.
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And yet we have the lowest jobless claims in 50 years. [cnbc.com]
So if the economy is "in the toilet" why do none of the metrics associated with that description actually back it up? Unemployment in November was at 4.6% - the same as in 2017 when nobody was bitching about the economy at all - and expected to further drop for the December numbers to be reported in a few days.
The only indicator that even comes close to justifying your outlook is inflation, and it's unclear if that's just an effect of such a rapid recov
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Let's Go Brandon!
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I returned to amazon to buy something that they never shipped two months ago.
After the 25 per cent off it would was still more expensive.
No purchase by me. The fraudulent jerks.
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Same. It's no longer a day for e-commerce deals, and instead it's a day that I have to clean a shitton of spam out of my inbox. All the spam is causing me to get pissed at these companies and go out of my way not to spend money on that fucking day, because I won't incentivize bad behavior.
Cyber Monday = spammer heaven (Score:2)
I swear I have stores sending me twelve copies a day of the exact same email since last Thursday promoting Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Do they think annoying me is a good way to get me to spend money I don't want to spend? Fuck you, assholes. Each new mail adds another check mark in the "don't do business with them" field in my business tracking spreadsheet.
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I know, and then you get hit up with 40 Giving Tuesday spam emails too.
Look, we got it the first time. Annoying us more won't get you more business, but it will make us hate you.
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Got to wonder how many of those companies are run by MBA's....
Had a girlfriend (weird, right?) with and MBA, she told me it meant Mediocre But Arrogant.
A short time later she told me to stop laughing.
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Complain all you want, but those emails work. If they didn't, they wouldn't send them out.
I think I got five from one company promoting their Cyber Monday whatever. I still bought from them because they had what I wanted at a good price.
Besides, you can easily unsubscribe from promotional email. It only takes a few seconds and I've found that most places honor your email preferences. Those that don't are easily filtered. Maybe you should take a little personal responsibility here?
Part of the reason (Score:3)
Is the retailers spread out their deals over a week or a month instead of offering them on just the weekend of black friday and cyber monday. I used to find deals, this is the first year I have not, I'd rather be grateful for what I already have.
Meaningless. (Score:3)
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Down south, where there is no thanksgiving... can you explain this?
I am from the mid-south and thanksgiving is a huge family event for most everyone.
Re: Meaningless. (Score:2)
Can't speak for other countries (Score:5, Insightful)
And online, Amazon is usually synonymous with this weekend but it has become a never ending parade of Amazon branded and Chinese OEM tat. Just randomly named garbage brands coming up over and over with no genuine discount to them. The same OEM items sell under dozens or hundreds of names and usually for less on Chinese websites like Aliexpress, Banggood or Wish any day of the year.
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I managed to get a fridge on Saturday. Confirmed it was the lowest price ever for that model, not a fake deal.
But yes, overall it was very disappointing. I was hoping that a Switch would be available for under £200, the old non-OLED model, but alas no.
Absolutely no exciting products that I want to buy (Score:3)
It all same old same old. Useless deals.
Every vendor wants to transition users to "steady revenue streams". Not many products that you buy and own without spending more. Remember the dark ages when music used to be sold in discs? One hit song packed with 9 more crappy songs in a CD for 19.99$ ? We are back there baby, except it is one hit show "air disasters" or some "Disney Princess thing" the daughters want to watch or the one sports the son wants to watch... its 9.99$ a month in this platform or that platform for each one, on top of internet connection fees, all with different subscriptions, click here to subscribe instantly, write a letter and send it to us by US Mail to cancel, allow six weeks for processing shit ...
After they have sucked the user dry steadily over the year, is there any blood left to suck on these holiday crap buying season ?
Perfect case if "be careful what you wish for, it might come true!". We ain't got nothing more to give, vultures! Now get lost.
That's because the logic behind it is dead. (Score:3)
There's almost nobody left who needs to wait for work Monday to order stuff online, so the entire concept of Cyber Monday is silly. Now it's just like any other Monday in the run-up to Christmas.
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I went online Wednesday, consulted the "Black Friday" sales, made my purchases.
I came back on Sunday to look at accessories, and the same sales were posted as "Cyber Monday."
The items I was buying were the same price as last month, however. Which is fine, the timing of my shopping was coincidental anyway.
2020 is a statiscal outlier (Score:1)
What did you expect? (Score:2)
I tried to buy an Apple wi-fi iPad, or even an iPad Air, and the earliest day I could pick one up was THE END OF JANUARY.
How about No?
Look, I don't care what the excuses are, but when I can't buy one from the Seattle Apple Store when I physically go in later in the day, there's no way I'm going to pay money now for something I won't get for TWO MONTHS.
Do better.
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The shortage of pallets is not just the ones from China, it's something TFG started, and Biden continued, a softwood lumber tarriff on Canada since they were dumping softwood exports to the US at below market prices. So don't expect that to be fixed until that concludes. As always, the US will win that trade war, eventually.
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This is a total mindfuck. I think the reality requires lots of examination to really understand but most will just be dismissive and say "eh China likes to lie".
First, most all economies depend on Chinese goods and they cannot simply spin-up local manufacture. So any additional costs accrued by the pandemic to produce these goods just have to be eaten by consumers (which are mostly western nations).
Second, I don't think the lockdowns in China are universal quite like other countries. Germany is smaller but
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Pretty much the same boat. The only product I actually wanted would have saved me $200, but I wouldn't see it until February. So, um, no. I'm not that desperate to save a few hundred over several months.
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I'm not that desperate to save a few hundred over several months.
Sorry, that seems incredibly short-sighted. This feels an awful lot like the adult version of the marshmallow test.
Which Cyber Monday was that? (Score:2)
Also Christmas is over, it happened right after Halloween in the stores.
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Don't forget Black Friday more like November 5 than 26. Those foolish companies did this to themselves.
You seem to have forgotten why it is called Black Friday.
Yes, they did it to themselves. They're not crying about it happening early, either.
Is anybody surprised? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wages are down, inflation is rising, tons of people are out of work. Those "record low" unemployment numbers are fed by states kicking tons of people off unemployment (and let's not even get into underemployment...). Turns out using the stock market as an indicator of economic health is fundamentally flawed and as much as Biden wants to tell you the economy is good because the number is going up, the average blue collar worker who can barely afford gas or groceries certainly feels otherwise. People simply don't have the money to splurge on Christmas gifts this year.
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I'm actually surprised the sales were down only 1.4% during these hard times. I would expect more like 20-30%.
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Times simply aren't nearly as hard as certain people would have you believe. What does that tell you?
Black Friday and Cyber Monday = poor deals (Score:2)
Not a surprise... (Score:1)
I can wait until this clears up.