I wouldn't say that they are 'hypnotized' in the strict sense of the word. I think it has a lot to do with human nature: if you're on the fence about a certain thing and you see that a large group of people really, really want it, you'll find yourself wanting the same thing as well since it's so in demand.
Retailers know this, and I believe they're doing what they can to take advantage of this fact.
Looks like an epidemia to me- millions of hypnotised people push the buttons 'Buy" to get something just because other millions are doing the same at that very moment. Scary.
Things are changing, @Sarahp. I think more and more people are tired of the madness of Black Friday. If the deals being offered online are comparable, why would anyone want to battle the crowds when they could have it delivered to their door stress free?
I'm on my last day of vacation but it will be interesting to look at the analytics from the results of cyber-Monday where I work (it's part of my job). We're Canadian, but it will be helpful to see how far along we are with U.S. trends.
One of the Hottest Items this Holiday Season are Tablets and one site worth visiting is TabletSprint -- they have Android tablets that offer better features than Nexus 7 & Kindle, for a much better price -- one model available is the Novo 7 Flame and it comes with 32GB for $189 (compare to Nexus 7 32GB at $249) -- and has 3 quality features Nexus doesn't - a MicroSD Memory Card slot for unlimited storage, 2 high quality cameras with a 5 megapixel back camera with autofocus & Flash; and HDMI output to a large screen TV, which is nice for movie downloads to watch in Full 1080p (HD) - It's also a great gaming device with a hi-res 1280x800 IPS screen and a 2nd generation dual core cpu. -- TabletSprint also includes $25 in software Apps, plus has something Nexus and Kindle don't - they provide customers with a 4G adapter for free, that comes with a free monthly 3G/4g data plan with free 500MB Data every month, with full internet access, and VoIP voice calling - TabletSprint is certainly worth checking out for this and other multimedia devices.
I'm with KMT568 - the growth in mobile use in general and specifically for ecommerce is a major theme not just for the holidays but for the year! It is cutting across age demographics and will be a much bigger issue in 2013. Mobile friendly will be a necessity!
Cyber Monday has been growing ever since it was developed by online retailers a couple of years back, so no surprise there. What I am surprised by is how many were willing to shop on Thanksgiving, even if it was only online. I would assume that most would want time off and away from a computer when they pretty much spend their whole lives on one. Plus it is a holiday and it isn't like they will be shipping it out the same day. Granted, the online end was better than in-store, but I still think we should leave the big shopping days for the weekend after it.
> sifting through and analyzing all this cyber shopping data presents > both challenge and opportunity, and those retail clients who synthesize, > then optimize, their online shopping experiences based on these changing > behaviors will be the ultimate holiday shopping season victors.
Every shopping season teaches us something new and different. The level of monitoring and industry data US retail industries enjoy is not available in many parts of the world.
> The iPad also continued to dominate tablet traffic, reaching a holiday > high of 90.5 percent. Amazon Kindle leapt into second at 2.6 percent > followed by the Samsung Galaxy at 2 percent and the Barnes and Noble > Nook at 0.6 percent.
I am surprised to see the high number of iPad and low numbers of Amazon. I wasn under the impression that Amazon was doing better in shopping after its latest series.
I think it is interesting to see the trend in mobile device shopping and purchases. This goes to show that the smartphone has truly become a safe haven for users for all sorts of activity.
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Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
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