Cyber Monday’s Rise comes at Black Friday’s Expense

“Back in the day, every retail executive had a singular focus: Black Friday,” said Sam Yagan, chief executive of ShopRunner, an e-commerce delivery service for retailers such as Neiman Marcus and Ann Taylor. “Now retailers are setting up war rooms where they’re watching real-time reactions and reacting accordingly. It’s becoming a lot more dynamic.”

Cyber Monday, he said, offers retailers more flexibility in that they can quickly change prices or introduce flash sales hour-by-hour, depending on consumer behavior. The day is also increasingly important for companies’ bottom lines: Americans spent a record $7.9 billion last year, more than double the $3.4 billion they spent on Cyber Monday 2016, according to Adobe Analytics. This year’s forecast is $9.4 billion, nearly 20 percent higher than 2018.

Makeup giant Estée Lauder assembles dozens of employees in “global war rooms” in New York, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom to monitor, and react to, sales data and consumer behavior on Cyber Monday and Black Friday. The company said Thanksgiving weekend revenue rose 58 percent year-over-year in 2017, after it began responding to shoppers’ needs in real time.  “We’re looking at these as opportunities to anticipate consumer needs,” said Salima Popatia, senior vice president of global consumer acquisition for the company, which has dozens of brands including Clinique, Aveda and MAC. “If there’s a lull, can we pull up a last-minute offer or drop in a discount? We want to react as quickly as possible.”

Other retailers say they’re also adjusting their strategies as a result of changing consumer habits. At Lord & Taylor, executives say, it’s clear “that Cyber Monday is becoming more important than Black Friday.”

“E-commerce has become a bigger piece of the focus,” said Rakesh Tondon, chief executive of Le Tote, the clothing rental start-up that recently acquired Lord & Taylor. “We’re putting more eggs in the Cyber Monday basket, weighting it more heavily than we might have two or three years ago.”