Local businesses get in on Cyber Monday

Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Garrett Jackson checks the computer used for online orders at Shuee & Sons Great Buys Plus, where he is a sales manager. Jackson said the store moved 20 percent more TVs than last year.

GREENCASTLE -- As Black Friday led into Cyber Monday, local merchants rode the wave of new shopping technology.

Shuee & Sons Great Buys Plus in Greencastle experienced great success with online orders. The store launched a website this past April, so store representatives were anxious to see how the busy shopping days following Thanksgiving would go.

"It actually went pretty well over the weekend," said Garrett Jackson, sales manager at Shuee's.

Jackson said the store's website traffic saw a 35 percent spike in the period from Black Friday through Cyber Monday.

"We know it was significantly higher than normal, but we didn't have the website last year (during the holiday season), so we don't really have much to judge against," he said.

Jackson said the big cyber seller over the post-Thanksgiving weekend was television sets.

"We moved 20 percent more TVs than we did last year," he said.

Shuee's offered discounts on Black Friday through Cyber Monday, with coupon codes for online shoppers.

"All of our competitors were pretty heavy on the Internet presence," Jackson said. "We have this image of being a small, hometown store, which we are, but this gives people a chance to see how competitive we really are."

Jackson said Shuee & Sons plans to develop its Internet marketing throughout the year.

"We will put a lot of focus on it," he said. "We've found that people do a lot of research online before they ever buy an item. It's a very continuous thing. We have to stay updated."

National chains with local ties have also reported increased online traffic around the holiday season. Walmart reported a 50 percent increase in online traffic on Thanksgiving compared to last year, and a 30 percent increase on Black Friday compared to last year.

Sears.com was taking advantage of Cyber Monday by offering reduced prices on some products, including over half off of a NordicTrack ACT Elliptical PLUS.

RadioShack.com also had online sales, including $70 off of a Tomtom GPS system and $30 off of a Sony Reader.

Nationally, a report by Coremetrics, an IBM company said that online sales across the country were up 19.4 percent from last year's Cyber Monday. The sale of luxury goods increased by 24.3 percent over last year's numbers.

3.9 percent of customers used their mobile device to do their Cyber Monday shopping. The average order value increased from $180.03 to $194.89, an increase of 8.3 percent.

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