Coupons/ Rebates/ Pricing

Cincinnati – Ever wonder what to do with all those unused loyalty points you probably have floating around? According to a survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers by loyalty intelligence provider Colloquy, six out of 10 shoppers intend to use points they’ve earned through customer-loyalty programs to save money on holiday gift-buying this year.

That represents a 22% increase in the number of shoppers who are planning to cash in reward points on gift purchases, compared to the 2013 holiday season.

Framingham, Mass. – Staples Inc. aims to make shipping both cheaper and easier for frazzled shoppers this holiday season. Staples is offering 20% off shipping services through Dec. 23 with coupon, and an expanded selection of packaging and shipping supplies.

New York – Cyber Monday lived up to the reputation of the gloomy start of the work week, with Internet traffic attributed to online consumer retail shopping activities decreasing 25 points from the prior day. According to the Verizon Retail Index, year-over-year, Cyber Monday’s results were down six points compared to Cyber Monday in 2013.

San Jose, Calif. - Total online sales for Cyber Monday came in at $2.65 billion, up 16% compared to 2013. According to data from Adobe Systems, the top 25 retailers, who each generated $30 million or more on Cyber Monday, saw online sales increase by 25%, capturing nearly $1.8 billion.
Smaller retailers, those generating $2 million or less, grew sales by 5%. Consumers saw the highest discounts of 23% in the early morning hours and more than half (54%) of online sales occurred outside of normal working hours.

San Francisco - Compared to the 2012 and 2013 peak shopping seasons, paid search spending began to rise nine days prior to Thanksgiving in 2014, four days earlier than the years prior. According to data from predictive marketing technology provider Kenshoo, not only has the shopping season been extended in 2014, but retailers are investing more budget into their paid search campaigns this year than ever before. 

By Scot Wingo, CEO, ChannelAdvisor Happy Cyber Monday! Each year we at ChannelAdvisor track the five days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday and call that the “Cyber Five.” This year, our Cyber Five Same Store Sales (SSS) data to date shows that Holiday ’14 is off to a very strong start.

New York - Despite some of the most promotional activity and extended operating hours the retail industry has ever seen, total spending for the four-day Black Friday weekend came in below projections, down a surprising 11.3% from last year.  According to the National Retail Federation's preliminary figures,  weekend spending dropped to  $50.9 billion from $57.4 billion last year.