Victoria's Secret Closed on Cyber Monday?

Looks like Victoria's Secret "opened late" on Cyber Monday. Here's a screenshot of their home page as of 6 AM Eastern Time on Cyber Monday. I looked at hundreds of other retail sites. All the rest were open.

Why do maintenance on the busiest day of the year?

Black Friday - 2007

115 of the largest internet retailer's home page on Black Friday - 11/23/2007.



The Black Friday sites really took off this week. Here's the traffic to Gottadeal's Black Friday site.

Black Friday - 2006

Here's a look back at some of the top retail sites from Black Friday 2006. (Actually it's Saturday 11/24/06. The whole web was so slow on Friday last year I couldn't stand it.)



{Click the slide show to see full images.}

So that's the past. If you want to look at the future - what's on sale this coming Friday check out the following sites:

bfads.net
blackfriday.info
blackfriday.gottadeal.com
theblackfriday.com
black-friday.net

According to Hitwise, 3.66% of traffic to walmart.com on Black Friday came from these sites. See chart below



A brief history of Black Friday can be found

Wikipedia or About.com

This Week In Etail 2007-11-17

78 of the top internet retailing websites as of 11/17/2007.



{Click slide show to view all as thumbnails or full image.}

Christmas IS Coming

I liked the quote in this week's Fortune (11/12/2007) from Gerald Storch, CEO of Toys "R" Us.

"I'm not an economist, but I can tell you that Christmas will come."

He goes on to talk about how parents by toys for their kids in good years and in bad. As well as details on the China related recalls.

This Week In Etail 2007-11-10

Here's another set of weekly home pages for your enjoyment. Lot's you can observe. This week a quick takeaway on email sign ups. Of the twenty sites you can view here



{View slide show in the blog, or click the photo to expand.}


Only 4 of the 20 had an email sign up above the fold (for a 1024 x 768 browser).
Disney Shopping
Banana Republic
Williams-Sonoma
Boston Proper

A list of those who did not:
Bloomingdales
Nike
Skechers
Piperlime
Gap brands
Coldwater Creek
JC Penney's
Target
Circuit City
Best Buy
1-800-Flowers
The Popcorn Factory

A Look Back at Banana Republic

Click on the album below to view the Banana Republic home page as it has appeared every week from December 2, 2006 through November 3, 2007.



{Click the slide show above to view individual images full screen.}

A couple items of note:

Free shipping went through several incarnations. From $125 threshold until 3/17/07 when it went up to $175. After a couple weeks of experimenting it settled on $6 shipping everyday (starting 4/7/07). On occasion BR now offers lower thresholds for free shipping (for example on 9/15/07 when it had a $50 threshold for BR card members).

Email sign-up was below the fold until 7/28/07. It has been above the fold ever since.

Find other interesting items? Add them to the blog comments!

Piperlime Introduces "Loyalty Program"

Piperlime introduced "Piperlime Perks" which sounds like a new loyalty program, but is really a set of customer guarantees to stay competitive with Zappos. They do extend the traditional Gap Inc. credit card benefits to the Piperlime brand.

This week's website promotes the new program.

{Click on any image to view it larger.}



The pop up for the perks shows the benefits as



That makes them competitive with Zappos from LAST year. Here's the Zappo's home page November 11, 2006.



Free shipping both ways plus a 110% price guarantee.

So now Piperlime has nearly the same policy on shipping and price, plus has their affinity card benefits.

This Week In Etail 11/03/07

Here a couple sites from the archive for the week of November 3, 2007.