With the holiday shopping season finally upon us, many retailers are already giving potential buyers a preview of their Black Friday deals. Additionally, many retailers are opening stores earlier than ever, and are trying out new promotions. One promotion we’re seeing more of is “Sofa Sunday,” which, according to Edwin Lee, VP of Retail at MediaMath, is the Sunday after Thanksgiving, a day when consumers heavily shop online using mobile devices.
With Sunday now established with its own moniker, every day from Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday is now ripe for promotional activity. But with an increased focus on each individual day, it seems that overall holiday promotions could potentially mean less.
The RTP team discusses the introduction of Sofa Sunday into Thanksgiving weekend, the overall necessity of the promotion, and whether it will have a major positive or negative affect on holiday sales.
Debbie Hauss, Editor-In-Chief: I don’t think that giving a name to yet another day of holiday shopping is going to have a huge impact on holiday sales, unless of course shoppers’ favorite brands grab on to it as an opportunity to offer huge and unique discounts on that day. The fact is, shoppers are generally savvier every day of the year, particularly since the 2008 recession. They are beginning their holiday shopping weeks and even months before Thanksgiving weekend. Retailers need to use their data to understand the motives and actions of their target holiday shoppers, then focus promotional activities based on those predictive behaviors. If your target shoppers are those people who will be sitting on the couch looking for deals during the Sunday after Thanksgiving, then by all means target them. Otherwise give your target shoppers the right products and deals at the time and place they are searching.
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Adam Blair, Executive Editor: It does seem as though every square of the calendar is being colonized by one named retail-related day after another. Some days have even lost the connection to their original meaning. For example, Cyber Monday was originally identified as a strong day for e-Commerce because in the earliest days of online shopping, consumers were more likely to have a fast Internet connection at their workplaces than the slow dial-ups in most homes. Now, of course, fast connections are anywhere and everywhere. For Sofa Sunday in particular, retailers might do well to use it less for a big promotional push and more for post-sale connections with the customers who visited brick-and-mortar stores earlier in the weekend. A targeted, personalized follow-up email or text, particularly for a big-ticket purchase, might do more to build customer loyalty than any other kind of communication.
Alicia Fiorletta, Content Strategist: When I first heard of Sofa Sunday, I instantly thought of Couch Commerce, a term coined by eBay. Couch Commerce, in its most basic form, is consumers using their tablets and smartphones to shop after Thanksgiving Dinner. So in reality, they’re basically the same thing. Usually I’m all for fun promotional opportunities, but this seems like a representation of overall shopping habits, not just one dedicated shopping day. But regardless, I’m sure retailers will be trying to capitalize on the opportunity by rolling out exclusive sales and deals. In my opinion, whether they’re successful or not depends on how creative and relevant they are with their messaging.
Glenn Taylor, Associate Editor: I don’t want to declare this type of promotion as overkill, but the trend toward earlier November shopping does bring into question whether the Sofa Sunday marketing tactic is worth it. Since the concept has floated around, I’m sure there are some retailers that are going to capitalize on this. Therefore, the task is on them to provide unique promotions related to Thanksgiving/Black Friday shopping trips that they might not have completed. While consumers are overloading on those earlier days, there is plenty of potential to reel in those that haven’t bought everything on their list, or even those late bloomers who generally wait until after the week is over to shop. Maybe these retailers can create incentives for mobile-specific purchases via an app.
