Cyber Monday “Largest Online Shopping Day in U.S. History”

16/01/2018

This year’s Cyber Monday is shaping up to be one of the most lucrative in recent memory for online retailers, and potentially one of the biggest ever.

According to the Los Angeles Times, online purchases hit a record high over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, with a growing number of American consumers ordering products from online retailers such as Amazon, Walmart and others.

The data published in the LA Times piece comes from Adobe Analytics, which tracks spending and transactions from the 100 largest US-based online retailers. According to the data, upwards of $14 billion was spent online over the weekend following Thanksgiving Day.

Cyber Monday was the largest online shopping day of the season, with almost $3.4 billion spent via online e-commerce retailers by 1:30 pm — an increase of 17% from spending patterns during the previous Thanksgiving weekend.

This year’s high level of online spending can be attributed to several factors. One is the general growth in e-commerce. More than at any previous point in the last decade, consumers are more comfortable ordering products online.

A second factor is the increasing focus of many large retail chains on online sales. Major retail stores such as Kohl’s reported a “record-breaking” weekend, recording nearly 16 million visits to its online store in a single day.

Despite the increase in online sales, visits to physical retail stores — a famous, of infamous part of Black Friday — fell slightly, possibly due to retailers offering lucrative online deals for shoppers that preferred to stay at home.

According to the National Retail Federation, total holiday spending increased by 4% over the course of the year. However, visits to physical retail stores over the Thanksgiving period were down 1.6% compared to 2016, indicating that much of the season’s growth is online.

The largest winner of the Thanksgiving shopping period appears to be Amazon.com. Although the e-commerce giant hasn’t released its holiday weekend shopping results to the public yet, it has released some interesting statistics.

During the first five hours of Black Friday, Amazon reportedly sold more than 200,000 toys to its eager audience of online shoppers. The company reported that Amazon Echo devices, pressure cookers and home DNA tests were among its top-selling Thanksgiving weekend items.

Amazon, which has always been a leader in e-commerce, now makes up 43% of e-commerce transactions, according to EMarketer data. The company’s dominance in online shopping has allowed it to create its own “shopping holidays,” such as the company’s Prime Day.

According to Amazon, Prime Day sales exceeded Black Friday and Cyber Monday spending, indicating that Amazon’s existing customer base is so much of an asset that the company can shape its own demand patterns and “create” consumer holidays of its own.

Unfortunately, the Thanksgiving shopping period wasn’t as much of a success for other retail brands as it was for Amazon. Department store giant Macy’s reported credit card and gift card processing issues that affected its ability to capitalize on the increased holiday demand.

Advertising Watchdog to Crack Down on Broadband Providers

Elliot Preece

16/01/2018

internet connection with wlan router in home office — wlan antenna

From May, UK-based broadband providers will be required to advertise more realistic speeds to their public, bringing the currently used “up to” speeds seen in advertising closer to reality.

Currently, broadband providers are allowed to advertise “up to” broadband speeds — download speeds that are available to 10 per cent of customers — instead of the average speed achieved by home broadband users.

The new regulations, designed to reduce customer complaints over differences between speeds promoted in advertising and realistic connection speeds, will limit advertising claims to download speeds achievable by at least 50% of customers during periods of peak network load.

The initiative is being handled by the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP), which recently found that broadband advertising is likely to mislead users about the average connection speed that can be achieved from a home connection.

Several independent studies have found that the majority of UK internet users don’t receive the connection speeds that are advertised by broadband providers. As many as 75% of broadband users have reportedly never received their advertised peak download speeds.

Under the new regulations, which will become law from May 23, broadband providers will need to advertise the median peak download speed. The CAP claims that this figure provides a more accurate representation of the speeds home broadband users can expect from regular use.

Broadband speeds are affected by numerous factors, from a user’s location and usage habits to their hardware. Shahriar Coupal, director of CAP, claims that the new rules will help consumers get a “better understanding of the broadband speeds offered by different providers.”

The new regulations have been praised by Ofcom, which has supported a chance to advertising rules for broadband services.

Britain has consistently lagged behind other European countries in broadband speeds — a fact that many have attributed to misleading advertising and low service quality. In August, Britain’s average connection speed ranked 31st in the world, below New Zealand and Thailand.

Poor connection speeds have resulted in consumer and political backlash. In July, dozens of MPs backed a report calling for the introduction of financial compensation for customers that paid for broadband download speeds they did not receive.

The report, which was coordinated by the British Infrastructure Group of MPs (BIG), noted that broadband is increasingly viewed as an essential utility similar to water or gas, and that service quality in the UK had “not caught up with demand” from consumers.

Connection speeds are not the only aspect of the broadband internet industry to earn criticism from consumer advocate groups. The ASA has also investigated the use of phrases like “fiber broadband” in advertising for connections that only partially use fiber optic cabling.

Despite this, progress is being made. The average home broadband speed rose to 36.2Mbps this year, up from 28.9Mbps the year before. Internet speeds are up across the UK, although rural areas continue to lag behind urban areas in infrastructure and line speed improvement.