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Merchant Services: Black Friday is Here

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Let the shopping season begin! Black Friday is here, and the traditional marker for holiday shopping is off to an unusual start for 2011. The Official Merchant Services Blog is taking today’s blog entry to give you a bit of a roundup on the event.

It Started Early

The first sign that this year’s Black Friday was going to be different than others was that it got started earlier than ever. Crowds lined up for midnight openings at Best Buy, Target, Kohl’s and Macy’s as retailers angled to get first crack at consumers’ tight holiday budgets. Wal-Mart opened even earlier at 10 p.m. and Toys ‘R’ Us started at 9 p.m. The Holiday Shopping season, as reported by The Official Merchant Services Blog previously, has been adversely affected by online shopping and e-commerce. Statistics show that shoppers — using the convenience of clicks over the late-in-the-year discounts of bricks — had been starting their holiday shopping as early as May and as late as August. The kicker being, Black Friday was potentially going to lose some of its draw. So this year retailers pushed and pushed and pushed, edging the event right into Thanksgving Day — well evening — itself.

Consumers Are Out in Force

Right now there are contradictory reports coming in about how successful this move was for retailers. One article from CNN suggests moving Black Friday into Thanksgiving was a success. The article quotes Tom Julian, president of Tom Julian Group, a retail consultancy in New York as saying: “Taking Black Friday into Thanksgiving Thursday has proven successful.”

The article then goes on to say: “Despite some backlash against such early store openings on Thanksgiving Day, the move seemed to pay off. At some Target stores, lines were more than twice as long as last year, according to the company. Men’s Angry Birds pajamas were one of the biggest sellers, along with televisions, game systems and cameras, spokeswoman Kristy Welker said.”

The article pointed out that lines at Sears, KMart, Macy’s and Toys’R’Us were all longer than previous years and business was ready to boom.

The Impact Might Not Be High

Despite the good numbers and fast start for Black Friday this article from CBSNews and its Early Show says that this year’s holiday shopping season could be a “bit of a bust.” The article takes a look at the big-picture of the economy and tries to see how even with a fast start, 2011’s Holiday Shopping Season could end up being a negative. The article stated: “this year, it might take more than one Black Friday to get retailers – and the U.S. economy – out of the red. Quijano added on ‘The Early Show,’ that while analysts project a 2.8 percent increase in Black Friday sales this year, that’s actually smaller than 2010, which saw a 5.2 percent boost.”

The article suggested consumers are wary and though they may be out in force, their shopping habits are more selective than usual: “In a national survey by the National Retail Federation, more than 50 percent of those who plan on shopping said they will wait to see if this weekend’s bargains are worth getting out and fighting for.”

And the article quoted Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst of NPD group, a marketing research services firm as saying: “There is no stimulus package, there is no jobs program, there is no tax rebate that the president’s put on the table, so it’s really up to the consumer to go toe the line themselves.”

Black Friday: Is It Worth It?

That brings us to this Digital Trends article, which suggests that Cyber Monday — and overall the convenience and growing popularity of e-commerce itself — is going to really cut into retail shopping and Black Friday in a big way this year and in the coming years. The article states: “Not only have brick-and-mortar retailers felt the push of Cyber Monday sales, but some companies like Amazon and eBay are beating in-store retailers to the punch by opening for business Thanksgiving morning. The lure and ease of the Internet has also evolved e-commerce and altered the shopper’s frame of mind, which all might be heralding the end of Black Friday as we once knew it.”

The article puts it simply that the lines and the hassle of sidewalk and mall shopping on one day of the year doesn’t give enough value to consumers when stacked up against the ease of click shopping online. The deals aren’t big enough compared to what shoppers find online. And there just isn’t any fighting that needs to be done to get to the products. No one shoves you out of the way when you slide your mouse or type in a browser menu bar.

Don’t Forget Groupon

Beyond the convenience factor, there’s also the fact that the deals on Black Friday are not as compelling as they used to be. And that’s because sites like Groupon and Living Social have been consistently blitzing consumers all year long with deep discount savings day in and day out. The Holiday Shopping Season is no exception. And so now consumers have a lot more options than just standing in line at BestBuy at midnight fighting over an item. They can shop around on the web and find something that may save them more and avoid the line entirely.

In Conclusion

It looks like this year’s Holiday Shopping Season has gotten off to a strong start. Black Friday is nowhere near being “dead.” It’s just that the numbers indicate this may be a really good year for shopping overall. Because of that, despite an increase in sales this year Black Friday’s impact might still be getting watered down. In other words, yeah, the numbers will be up for Black Friday, but that could just be a byproduct of all numbers being up this quarter. Holiday Shopping booms all over. And Black Friday numbers benefit. But many still feel that e-commerce is going to continue to grow faster and faster, eating into brick-and-mortar retail numbers. The Bricks vs. Clicks battle still seems to favor the clicks.

Host Merchant Services, payment network provider of both retail processing services and an entire lineup of customizable e-commerce solutions tailor made to a merchant’s specific needs, is able to help you maximize your potential in both areas. We can help you navigate through the busy bustle of holiday shopping and find the transaction processing services that serve you best.

Happy Thanksgiving from Host Merchant Services

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Black Friday is just hours away. The big sales, and the huge discounts are all locked and loaded. But for now, The Official Merchant Services Blog is going to take a moment to pause. The calm before the storm. We would like to wish everyone following our blog a very happy Thanksgiving holiday!

So while you’re getting ready to dine on turkey and trimmings, Host Merchant Services is going to offer you up some fun facts about Thanksgiving, its history, and the bird it centers on:

Talking Turkey

According to the National Turkey Foundation the U.S. raised a whopping 244 million turkeys in 2010. Of those birds, approximately 46 million found themselves roasting in ovens across the country last Thanksgiving. That number is on the rise in 2011. An estimated 248 million turkeys will be raised for slaughter in the U.S. this year, up 2 percent from 2010’s total, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

National Geographic states: “Minnesota is the United States’ top turkey-producing state, followed by North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Virginia, and Indiana. These “big six” states produce two of every three U.S.-raised birds, according to data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau. U.S. farmers will also produce 750 million pounds (340 million kilograms) of cranberries in 2011, which, like turkeys, are native to the Americas. The top producers are Wisconsin and Massachusetts.”

History of the Holiday

Though many competing claims exist, the most familiar story of the first Thanksgiving took place in Plymouth Colony, in present-day Massachusetts, in 1621. More than 200 years later, President Abraham Lincoln declared the final Thursday in November as a national day of thanksgiving. Congress finally made Thanksgiving Day an official national holiday in 1941. Sarah Josepha Hale, the enormously influential magazine editor and author waged a tireless campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday in the mid-19th century, and is often cited as having an impact on getting Lincoln to declare it a holiday. Hale was also the author of the classic nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

What Was On The Menu?

The traditional foods we tend to associate with Thanksgiving were most likely not part of the menu that day in Plymouth. The feast was organized by Governor William Bradford and attended by some 50 English colonists and about 90 Wampanoag American Indians. It lasted for three days and had some foods that might surprise you. That National Geographic article suggests that the Wampanoag killed five deer for the feast. And that the colonists shot wild fowl –– which could have been geese, ducks, or the turkey we all associate with the feast. And it is regarded that some forms of Indian corn dishes were also served. The article also suggests that the Indians supplemented the venison with fish, lobster, clams, nuts, and vegetable dishes like pumpkin, squash, carrots and peas.

Retconning Turkey Day

The aforementioned National Geographic Article also suggests Plymouth wasn’t really the first Thanksgiving. It states that American Indian peoples, Europeans and other cultures around the world often celebrated the harvest season with feasts and gatherings, many of which gave thanks to higher powers for their survival and their sustenance. In 1541 Spaniard Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and his troops celebrated a “Thanksgiving” while searching for New World gold in what is now the Texas Panhandle. After that, a similar feast was held in 1564 by French Huguenot colonists in present-day Jacksonville, FL. English colonists and Abnaki Indians feasted together in Maine’s Kennebec River around 1607. And Jamestown, VA colony celebrated the arrival of a food supply ship that ended a brutal famine in 1610.

More Facts About the Holiday

Some quick tidbits:

  • Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird of the United States.
  • The annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade tradition began in the 1924.
  • Congress to passed a law on December 26, 1941, ensuring that all Americans would celebrate a unified Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November every year.
  • Since 1947, the National Turkey Federation has presented a live turkey and two dressed turkeys to the President. The President does not eat the live turkey. He “pardons” it and allows it to live out its days on a historical farm.
  • Each year, the average American eats somewhere between 16 – 18 pounds of turkey.
  • Californians are the largest consumers of turkey in the United States.
  • Although, Thanksgiving is widely considered an American holiday, it is also celebrated on the second Monday in October in Canada.
  • The heaviest turkey ever raised was 86 pounds, about the size of a large dog.
  • Turkeys will have 3,500 feathers at maturity.
  • Male turkeys gobble. Hens do not. They make a clucking noise.

So there you have it. A completely incomplete rundown on Thanksgiving and turkeys! Enjoy your meal and get ready for the big shopping blitz to begin at midnight. Black Friday is upon us and credit card processing, merchant services and e-commerce business is about to boom.

Getting Ready for Holiday Shopping

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The Official Merchant Services Blog would like to wish everyone a very happy Halloween. As we speed our way into the last stretch of 2011, the holidays are going to zoom into view. Holiday shopping season officially tends to start on Black Friday. But in recent years, the boom in online shopping has holiday shoppers no longer traditionally adhering to the official shopping season trends. A 2010 survey conducted by Google and OTX found that 35% of internet users start their holiday shopping prior to the end of summer, months ahead of Black Friday.This trend is only continuing to grow as consumers find online shopping convenient to their shopping habits, easy to do, and the wide selection lets them find great deals on price.

This boom in e-commerce continues on past Black Friday. Cyber Monday, a marketing term coined in 2005 to describe a big push with incentives to shop online days after Black Friday, set records in 2010. According to a Star Tribune article from January 16, 2011, Cyber Monday sales rose 16 percent from 2009, and topped $1 billion overall –– marking the first time Cyber Monday hit the billion dollar mark. The record setting didn’t stop on Monday, according to comScore, a company that tracked the sales figures between November and December for the e-commerce industry. Sales on Thanksgiving Day were up 28 percent from the previous year, and overall e-commerce sales topped $32 billion in the holiday shopping period, a 12 percent rise from 2009. Even Black Friday, brick and mortar stores’ biggest holiday shopping day of the year, saw a 9 percent rise in e-commerce to $648 million.

“This trend isn’t going away in 2011. Some preliminary predictions are suggesting that this year’s holiday shopping season is going to be robust, and online shopping will continue its rise in the eyes and wallets of consumers. You can see that e-commerce is heavily predicted to boom in the next four years through previous articles posted by Host Merchant Services. And while The Official Merchant Services Blog prepares to give you ongoing coverage of the holiday shopping season’s impact on the E-Commerce industry, we’re going to take some time to give merchants some helpful tips to get prepared for 2011:

  • Start early. With your promotions and your sales, start getting the marketing as well as the products or services out there to your customers as early as you can. As seen with the statistics above, online shopping is not beholden to the Black Friday start date. Online shoppers make their lists, check them twice as soon as brick and mortar shoppers and start looking for deals from spring on through the rest of the year.
  • Check and re-check your process. Make sure your online shopping cart is running smooth. The biggest draw of e-commerce for many consumers is convenience. So it’s very important for your online shopping experience to be hassle free to the users of your website.
  • Consider your product line. With online business as booming as it is, it can be easy for your site to get lost in the crowd as shoppers surf around. Consider offering something your competition can not offer. A unique item. An eye-catching deal. Basic marketing plan, but even in the e-commerce industry, the basics still work.
  • Gift certificates are a big holiday item, and that does not stop online. In fact tomorrow’s blog post is going to look at something specific to this year’s shopping season that takes gift certificates and gift cards a step forward in terms of convenience for holiday shoppers. One thing to remember about gift certificates is the post-holiday business they drum up for you. They are purchased during the holiday season, but get used after the holidays, giving your online store the potential to attract other purchases beyond the capacity of the gift certificate in the slower sales month of January.
  • SEO and Keyword choices should be focused on with your advertising. Consumers gift shop online using search engines. You want to do everything you can to get your site in front of them when they search for these gifts. The focus of your e-commerce solution for your business should be an online store that your customers can find easily and then use conveniently. This will get them coming back to your site.
  • Free shipping. This is something that if you can offer, you should strongly consider offering to your customers. It is a big boost for the e-commerce industry leaders each year that they can offer free shipping to holiday shoppers.

Those tips are just scratching the surface of things you can do to prepare for the holiday shopping season. It’s certainly not too late to get ready for the business rush that holiday gift-giving provides each year. Host Merchant Services provides e-commerce solutions to our merchants that will let them take payments smoothly and efficiently. And The Official Merchant Services Blog will continue to provide insight on how merchants can maximize this opportunity.