'Cyber Monday' Sales Strong, Web Sites Say
The Wall Street Journal
November 29, 2005

By PUI-WING TAM and MYLENE MANGALINDAN
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Late Sunday night, Troy Brown and his team scrambled to put the finishing touches on Timberland Co.'s Web site. Mr. Brown, a senior director who runs the site, wanted to highlight a special 25% online discount that the apparel company offered yesterday -- one of the biggest Internet shopping days of the year.

By 3 p.m. Eastern time yesterday, the last-minute maneuvering was paying off big. Lured by the one-day promotion and a mention on NBC's "The Today Show," traffic at Timberland's Web site jumped 87% from the same day a year ago and revenue from the site soared nearly 137% from then.

"The traffic spikes and revenue spikes are unlike anything we've ever seen before," said Mr. Brown. "It's crazy." He declined to give the underlying figures.

Timberland's experience is just one snapshot in what appears to be the start of a robust online shopping season. The Monday after Thanksgiving, nicknamed "Cyber Monday," is the unofficial kickoff of the Internet holiday shopping period. It has become a huge online shopping day in part because after a long Thanksgiving weekend of comparing prices and exchanging gift ideas, many shoppers return to the high-speed Internet connections in their offices ready to buy electronically.

Online Christmas sales already had jumped over the four-day Thanksgiving weekend. Americans spent $305 million online Friday, up 22% from the same day a year ago, according to research firm comScore Networks. Research firm Nielsen/NetRatings said its Holiday eShopping Index, which tracks traffic to 100 Web sites, jumped 29% Friday from a year earlier. While complete data on Cyber Monday sales won't be available until later this week, the experience of Timberland and of other online retailers suggests that yesterday was a very strong Internet shopping day.

Indeed, yesterday was "the biggest day in our history," said Patrick Byrne, president of Overstock.com Inc., an outlet-shopping site that sells everything from jewelry to clothing to cameras at clearance prices. Lured by a flat-rate shipping fee of $1, buyers scooped up accessories such as leather handbags, luggage and shoes, as well as boxed DVD sets of popular television shows. The average size of orders was $109, Overstock said.

The number of visitors to Overstock's Web site yesterday through noon, the latest figure the company could make available, was up 80% from three months ago, while sales were up 20% from Friday, Mr. Byrne calculates. "We are very happy," he said.

One group not so enamored with all the online shopping is employers. While many companies don't seem to have a problem with occasional online shopping expeditions by their workers, others frown on the practice. Some employers even monitor how their employees use the Internet at work.

According to a January report on the Internet and workplace privacy by the Society of Human Resource Management, which surveyed more than 300 human-resource executives, 29% said their organizations frequently monitored employee Internet use, while 43% said their organizations occasionally scrutinized workers' online activity.

"Many of the largest employers block this kind of [shopping] activity, and those that don't block it are likely to be monitoring it," said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a research group in San Diego that studies workplace and privacy issues. "That makes such shopping very ill-advised."

Such warnings didn't stop consumers such as Frannie Cooley. The San Francisco mother of two says she bought three dolls from J.C. Penney Co.'s Web site and a toy karaoke machine from Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s site, prompted by special prices and shipping promotions the retailers offered online. Ms. Cooley, an investment portfolio manager, received free shipping from J.C. Penney and paid just 97 cents for shipping on her Walmart.com purchase. "I'm probably going to do everything online" this holiday season, she says.

Ms. Cooley, who is expecting her third child, says she shopped online from work during her lunch hour and after the stock market closed, which marks the end of her workday. The convenience of shopping on the Web and her long hours make shopping online from her job a no-brainer.

"I'm in front of my computer a lot. I hate having to deal with driving downtown, parking, scrambling around looking for what I need," she says. On the Web, "it's just easier."

Meanwhile, online bag seller eBags.com saw significant traffic and sales spikes yesterday, the first day it launched a three-day promotion of 10% off sale items and free shipping on purchases exceeding $35. By around 4 p.m. Eastern, the company's sales had climbed 67% from the same day a year ago, says Peter Cobb, eBags.com's co-founder.

Sales were up 55% on the Web site that the company manages for luxury luggage retailer Tumi, and sales rose 89% by late afternoon on the company's site for shoes, called 6pm.com. Overall, visits to the company's main eBags site rose about 80%, exceeding the company's forecast of a 40% increase.

Joann.com, the online arm of the arts-and-crafts retailer Jo-Ann Stores Inc., says sales rose 80% by midday compared to the same day last year. Linsly Donnelly, chief operating officer of IdeaForest, the company that owns and operates the Joann.com Web site, credited higher traffic, shopping-cart basket size and the number of shoppers actually making purchases as drivers for the higher sales. Hot items selling on Joann.com included Christmas trees, scrapbook kits and knitting supplies.

Another site reporting strong orders was online seller of books, music and movies, Alibris. Its sales appeared likely to end up at least 50% higher than the same day last year, says Brian Elliott, the company's chief operating officer. The site also saw "great" order volume over Thanksgiving weekend, up 60% compared to last year, he says.

Write to Pui-Wing Tam at pui-wing.tam@wsj.com and Mylene Mangalindan at mylene.mangalindan@wsj.com