The Monday Foursome

All this talk about Cyber Monday … I’m here to hopefully provide some insight into real data on how the holiday shopping season is shaping up.

Starting on the Friday following Thanksgiving, ShareASale noted a pretty steep incline in transactions taking place. How steep? Taking usual transaction volume averages for the previous few months – “Black Friday” saw a raw increase of about 15%. That’s pretty good I think. That was Friday…. and then there was Sunday – seeing an additional increase taking the whole thing to more like 25% increase.

Monday….well, Monday was closer to a 50% increase over previous month averages. This number is notably higher than some of the national averages that have been released, which (pure speculation really) I think has to do with the flexibility of smaller merchants in combination with the lean towards “bargain shoppers” in the affiliate channel.

Lessons learned? First off, congratulations to all of the merchants and affiliates who prepared for “Cyber Monday” by designing deals, shopping incentives, motivations, etc… Your efforts obviously paid off.

Second, to those merchants or affiliates who may have underestimated the power of “Cyber Monday” … I’m here to share another historical trend with you.

Cyber Monday was a coined phrase a few years ago (origins are debated) … as a buzzword to help us all kick off the shopping season. However, the true trend lies in the four Mondays that lead up to the end of the year. They include (this year) November 26th, December 3rd, 10th, and 17th. (hence, the “Monday Foursome” (no relation to the Sunday Foursome, Four Horsemen, or Forefathers) )

Using last year as an example, ShareASale experienced approximately a 5-10% increase each Monday over the next (excluding last Monday due to shipping deadlines, etc…)

So – what I am trying to tell you is that if you are a merchant or an affiliate looking to take advantage of the holiday shopping season, stay tuned and ready because Cyber Monday might be a kickoff to the season, but there are even bigger days to come.