Biggest Christmas Shopping Day 2010 – Announced

Over the last few years we have seen a continual rise in the amount of traffic concentrated on just one day of the year for online shopping. It is true to say that from about November 1st, web traffic for online retail really starts to build up but there is one day in the year which it all comes to a peak -this year that day is expected to be Monday November 29th – aka “cyber Monday” – the Monday immediately following Black Friday.Having studied traffic trends from some very large shopping comparison sites over the past 5 years the trending of traffic has been quite interesting as it has shown clearly the generally peaks and flows throughout the year – what we see as a normal pattern is a very strong January, with numbers being as high as all of December and sometime beating December but never is there one day which surpasses the cyber Monday stats.February is a big drop – usually at least 30% lower than November numbers and as much as half of December/January figures. April is poor normally then it climbs back up to stabilise for May and stays pretty much consistent for the rest of the year with a few low points during summer holidays and bank holidays. In 2010 the General Election in May had a very negative effect on traffic so 2010 has some catching up to do in general.Traffic starts a slight growth in September with October coming back strong and then, as said above, 1st November seeing the first real signs of the Christmas rush. This year will be even stronger mainly due to two reasons:1) many more retailers are pushing their online strategy and also using social media to get more users2) sites that provide sales information on home appliances and voucher codes sites are set to see a bumper increase in consumers hunting down the best deal.What a lot of consumers are starting to realise is that the main retailers do not always put the best deal on their own sites – instead preferring to get extra traffic by letting affiliate sites offer goods at just a few % less than the deals on the main site. This is especially true with voucher codes.