Exploiting Cyber Monday

Written by Aditya Kishore

Tuesday, November 27. 2007 at 03:45 PM EST 1 comment

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A few years ago, the term Cyber Monday entered the lexicon. For the most part, it was limited to us tech geeks as an attempt to create a Black Friday equivalent for e-commerce sites. But now it might be time for online media services to start taking advantage of it as well.

Black Friday is a term well-known in the retail industry. It's the Friday after Thanksgiving, and one of the biggest shopping days of the year. And the "Black" in the title has nothing to do with the bubonic plague. It's seen as the day retailers become profitable or go out of the "red" and into the "black" for the year. It's the day when prices are slashed to entice shoppers into stores, and crowds trample one another to get great deals. It's also seen as the official start to the Christmas shopping season.

So Cyber Monday was, of course, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, where e-tailers would offer major discounts. In the past, Cyber Monday has not hugely troubled the accountants. But this year, it seems to have come of age. Some estimates of Cyber Monday sales suggest that it would account for close to the 15 percent of holiday sales that Black Friday provides for offline retail.

As an increasing number of e-tailers look to exploit Cyber Monday, it also provides an opportunity for online media services. We've all seen how device service integration can help drive the adoption of services -- just ask Apple. And holiday shopping is very directly tied to media devices. The Nintendo Wii is expected to be the most popular purchase this holiday season and has already topped the Black Friday sales charts.

Next year at this time, it might be a good idea for music and video download services to look for deals with PC manufacturers, console manufacturers, MP3 players, and other portable and mobile media device manufacturers to bundle three to six month subscriptions with the sale of their devices. It's a differentiator for the device and a great acquisition opportunity for a fledgling site.