Yesterday was Green Monday, one of the most lucrative shopping days of the year. But for most top ecommerce retailers, it was treated as just another one of the promotion-filled days during December.
Green Monday—which is the final Monday that comes 10 or more days before Christmas—is considered to be an essential part of the holiday shopping season. That’s because it comes at a point when consumers start getting serious about buying gifts, according to the online marketplace eBay Inc. The company invented Green Monday in 2007 when the marketplace experienced one of its biggest sales days on the second Monday of December. The day has consistently ranked as one of eBay’s top five sales days of the year, the company says.
However, only a few of the largest e-retailers used Green Monday as a specific reason to hold a sale. A Digital Commerce 360 analysis conducted on Monday of the Top 50 online retailers found just nine (18%) offered promotions directly tied to Green Monday. However, 31 retailers, or 62%, were running holiday-themed promotions of some kind.
As retailers moved toward multi-day shopping events, the effect on Green Monday this year was similar to that of Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving), which has morphed into Cyber Week for many retailers. Similarly, retailers often absorbed Green Monday into extended holiday promotion calendars. For example, ecommerce giant Amazon.com Inc. (No. 1 in the 2019 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000) included Green Monday among the days in its ongoing “12 days of deals” sale, which began on Cyber Monday, Dec. 2. The sale is punctuated with a livestream on Amazon’s website to promote featured products.
Similar to Amazon, Walmart Inc. (No. 3) made Green Monday into Day 4 of its 12-day “Daily Deal Drop” promotion, which includes deals across numerous categories. For Wayfair Inc. (No. 12), Monday promotions pushed its ongoing annual holiday sale, which offers deals up to 70% off. The Wayfair website does not specify an ending date for the sale.
Even without much specific attention among top e-retailers, Green Monday was a good—if not spectacular—sales day. Online sales on Dec. 9 reached $3.00 billion, according to Adobe Analytics, up 3.4% from $2.9 billion a year earlier, making it the seventh–biggest online shopping day since Nov. 1. The firm generates its data from more than 1 trillion visits to more than 4,500 retail sites, including transactions from 80 of the top 100 U.S. online retailers ranked in the 2019 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000.
On Green Monday, eBay offered discounts and free shipping on thousands of items.
Arguably the biggest Green Monday booster is the event’s founder, eBay. This year, eBay (ranked No. 5 in the ranking of Digital Commerce 360 Online Marketplaces) offered thousands of Green Monday deals that included both discounts and free shipping. The marketplace offered deals across numerous categories, including apparel, electronics, home goods, sporting goods and toys.
And among the top 50 online merchants, those that held Green Monday promotions included some of best-known names in retail:
- Dell Technologies Inc. (No. 4): Up to 50% off on personal computers and electronics.
- Home Depot Inc. (No. 7): An extra 10% off selected decor and furniture items with the promo code HDGREENMONDAY10.
- Macy’s Inc. (No. 5): Extra savings on top of deals tied to its Friends & Family loyalty program.
Target Corp. offered Green Monday deals on thousands of products.
- Office Depot Inc. (No. 20): Thousands of items on sale, including deals on personal computers, monitors, furniture and office supplies.
- Target Corp. (No. 16): Deals in numerous categories, including 30% off home goods and $25 off toy purchases of $100 or more.
- Kohl’s Corp. (No. 25): An extra 25% off with Friends + Family coupon and promo code SAVE25. Also: $10 Kohl’s Cash for every $50 spent.
- Newegg Inc. (No. 31): Special deals on numerous items, such as gaming consoles, personal computers, monitors and headsets.
- J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (No. 41): Deals including free shipping on orders over $25, 40% off denim products and up to 65% off online-only deals.
- Overstock.com Inc. (No. 48): A flash sale offering 70% off thousands of items, plus free shipping.
Beyond the Top 50 e-retailers, numerous web merchants used Green Monday themes on their websites or in their promotional emails—or both. For example, apparel retailer Belk Inc. (No. 80) sent Green Monday-themed promotional emails offering an extra 30% off regular and sale prices and free shipping on all orders.
Karmaloop, another fashion brand, offered an extra 30% off with the discount code SAVEGREEN. The Green Monday promotion was still on the retailer’s website as of Tuesday afternoon.
Belk offered discounts and free shipping on Green Monday.
Other participants included marketplace Shoprunner, which offered Green Monday deals across several categories, and the CVS drug store chain (part of CVS Caremark Corp., No. 132 in the Top 1000). CVS offered a buy two, get one free flash sale on selected trial and travel-sized items on CVS.com.
The results on Green Monday add to what has been an upbeat holiday sales season online. U.S. shoppers spent $28.49 billion on retail websites over the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, up 17.7% from the same holiday weekend last year, Adobe reported. Adobe expects online holiday shopping for 2019 (November and December) to reach $143.8 billion, a 14.1% increase compared with 2018.
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