Trends on Tuesday: Mobile Driving Pre-Cyber Monday Shopping

Cyber Monday, billed as one of the busiest online-commerce days of the year, is spilling into the rest of the holiday season as more consumers use mobile devices to shop whenever they please.

Shoppers are no longer waiting to return to work on the Monday after Thanksgiving to surf and complete web deals. Consumers armed with tablets and smartphones are stretching the Cyber-Monday sales over a longer period according to Bloomberg.

Some stats:

Online holiday sales will increase as much as 15 percent to $82 billion, more than three times faster than the total gain of 3.9 percent to $602.1 billion, according to the National Retail Federation.

Evidence of an extended online buying period emerged last year, especially on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, as consumers browsed online offers between post-turkey naps. Growth in spending on those days rose — up 32 percent on Thanksgiving versus 18 percent in 2011 — while the pace of Cyber Monday sales growth slowed to 17 percent last year, compared with 22 percent the year prior, according to ComScore.

As Bloomberg notes, these trends are spurring e-commerce heavyweights (like Amazon) to grapple with retailers (like Macy’s) by using online promotions and mobile apps to lure tech-savvy gift buyers long before and after Cyber Monday.

With these anytime, anywhere shopping habits becoming more common, agencies must become more acutely aware of their audience and their internet browsing habits, as well as their expected user experience. Agencies should consider how to provide a custom browsing experience for citizens in their mobile strategy.