Home Depot (HD) would like shoppers to believe that the Monday after Cyber Monday is Cyber Monday II. Why? Because Home Depot said so. But also because after the record-breaking Thanksgiving-Black Friday-Cyber Monday-Cyber Week has concluded, more than 50% of shoppers say they still have shopping to do.
Home Depot wants sales. So Home Depot stages a Cyber Monday II sale.
It's all about the Monday math and the calculated risks based on that math. If 35 million people spent $1.5 billion shopping online last Monday, there's no reason to think they couldn't be enticed into shopping every Monday is there?
We'll see. Or more specifically retailers like Home Depot, Sears (SHLD), TigerDirect (SYX) and Target (TGT) will see, since they have flash deals, members-only discounts, customer rewards specials and sales spillovers that are ending today, beginning today, and both beginning and ending today.
If you're a Christmas holiday deal shopper and you didn't know about all of these Cyber Monday II one-day-only December deals and discounts already, then you have obviously not joined enough e-Clubs and Customer Rewards programs. Retailers have been pumping out specials to those e-mail lists at a rapid rate during the 2012 Christmas holiday shopping season.
There's no reason to think those members-only deals and discounts aren"t going to continue and even escalate throughout December. Click here if you want to get on the receiving end of those members-only deals and customer rewards discounts >>
Is the use of these one-day only, exclusive, flash deal retail tactics getting tiresome to the average consumer.? Well, judging from the 400 layoffs that were announced by the Living Social flash deal company, one would think so. But nontheless, deal-of-the-day is the me-too retail thing for the 2012 Christmas holiday shopping season, and there are good reasons why serious deal seekers still want to pay attention to them.
Take consumer electronics e-retailer TigerDirect.com for example. In the Groupon style of flash deals, Tiger Direct has a "Daily Deal Slasher" which is one deeply discounted product for one day.
The TigerDirect Daily Deal Slasher that is running today, and expires at the end of Monday, December 3rd, is at the most favorite Christmas deal shopper price of FREE. Ultimate Ears 100 Noise Cancelling Ear-buds are completely free from Tiger Direct today as long as you're willing to pay $1.99 for the shipping.
Click here for today's TigerDirect's Free Earbuds Monday Deal >>
And while you're there, you can shop around in the 100 deals for under $100 that started today at TigerDirect.com. That's 100 more good reasons why you'd want to join the TigerDirect e-club list.
Keeping with the theme of people-shop-at-work-on-Mondays-now, Home Depot 's marketing teaser that greeted Home Depot e-Club members this morning claims that on Cyber Monday II, shoppers can save 50% on more than 1000 items. That seems like good enough motivation to shop instead of work, right?
In fact, there are 1,152 products on sale at Home Depot Monday only for 50% off or more. Of course 1,069 of those products are light and ceiling fans. So if you're in the market for ceiling enhancements, Cyber Monday II is your lucky day. if not, you might want to do your work at work this particular Monday and shop when you get home.
Home Depot wouldn't be thrilled with that work-at-work-shop-at-home strategy, and neither would Sears. The marketing team at Sears chose to end its Family & Friends promotion not at the end of a weekend as is traditional, not at the end of a Monday, which is the new retail tradition either. Sears has chosen to end its Family and Friends sale on Tuesday morning at 7:00 AM CT.
That is a seriously odd time to end a sale. I guess the Sears marketing team is thinking that people are going to do some pre-dawn shopping on Tuesday in order to get an extra 5% - 15% Family and Friends discount off their purchases. (As is typical of Sears promos, we don't really know who the "family" or the "friends" are that the sale is named after, and Sears hopes nobody cares enough to ask.)
If you're in the market for a 5-person Hot Tub, perhaps the extra 5% discount Sears is offering will get you out of bed early on Tuesday morning. Personally I'm not sure the extra 15% discount on the Dyson Animal Cordless Vacuum would be worth anybody losing sleep. But that's just a matter of priorities, I suppose.
By the way, in case you do shop the Sears Family and Friends online sale, you won't notice your extra discount until you're in your shopping cart finishing up your transaction. The extra discount is just supposed to magically appear at that time. But it would probably be a good idea to check your prices to make sure it did.
Target has not just one, but nine daily deal offers that expire at a much more reasonable time - 1:00 PM EST today. And then a whole new batch of Daily Deals will appear after that. You can click here to see the first batch of Target's Monday Daily Deals, and then use the same link after 1:00 PM EST to view the second batch. Whether you like Target's Daily Deals, or not, as long as you keep clicking through to look at them, then the daily deal strategy is doing its job quite well.
Also ending on Cyber Monday II is a deal to get an extra $20 off any $150 order at Overstock.com. This is another one of those members-only deals, but if you hurry up and join the Overstock.com Club O, you might still be able to get this ends-Monday deal. If you do miss it, don't worry. You can snag the next Overstock.com deal that will come to find you... if you're a "member," of course.
These are not the only flash deals, members-only discounts, or customer rewards specials happening on Cyber Monday II. And they're also not the only December deals and discounts that end today. But the morale of the story, and the point of this article is that if you're one of the 50% of shoppers who still have Christmas shopping to do, you'll save yourself a lot of deal-hunting time if you make sure you put yourself in the direct path of of them. Here's some links that will help you do that:
- Newest One-Day Only Flash Deals, December 2012
- Best December Deals, Freebies & Coupons
- Customer Rewards Program Full List
- How to Find the Best December Deals and Discounts on Amazon.com
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