How Important Is Cyber Monday To America's Retailers?
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- It's Cyber Monday, a day when shoppers are encouraged to go online to buy Christmas holiday gifts.
But retail experts say growth is flat with a Google survey finding Cyber Monday ranking low as an important shopping day.
So, how important is Cyber Monday when everyone shops online all the time? Online sales were up 17 percent on Thanksgiving and 20 percent on Black Friday, so what does Cyber Monday mean any more?
For those traditional brick and mortar retail stores, it's just another way to push their products.
But for locally based Mod Cloth, which only sells its products online with no retail stores, Cyber Monday is another way to get people online to shop.
"I think Cyber Monday is very much still relevant, especially for an online business such as ours," said Maggie Glover, of Mod Cloth.
Glover is Mod Cloth's head of community, and her team works on the company's online contact with customers, most of whom are younger women into vintage fashion and accessories.
Mod Cloth's web page makes no mention of Cyber Monday, but instead offers products that customers have voted as favorites on the Internet.
"We have a bunch of items on sale today that were most pinned on Pinterest, most Tweeted on Twitter, and most posted on Facebook," said Glover.
With online sales expected to rise 17 percent this year, Glover says it's the future, especially as mobile smartphones account for 16 percent of online sales.
"I think mobile shopping is what we're going to be talking about over the next few holiday seasons," she said.
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