Cyber Monday Shows Local Shops Need Stronger Online Presence

Cyber Monday underscores the need for Long Beach businesses to optimize their websites and use of social media to compete with national retailers, according to local owners of media-based companies.

Hilary Topper, a Lido Beach resident who founded both HJMT Communications, a multifaceted public relations firm, and the Social Media Club of Long Island, said local business are already disadvantaged by a perception, whether correct or not, that national retailers offer comparatively lower prices, and that more people are shopping online rather than visit their stores.

“In today's economy, you can surf the Internet and find the cheapest price for good quality,” Topper said. “Aren't you likely to buy it over the Internet than go to your local store?”

That Cyber Monday, a term coined in 2005 by the National Retail Federation for the Monday after Thanksgiving, has become the busiest online shopping day of the year shows that more people are shopping online, Topper said. According to ComScore, a company that measures trends in the digital world, Cyber Monday reached $1.028 billion in online spending in 2010, up 16 percent from the previous year, and represents the heaviest online spending day ever and the first to top the billion-dollar benchmark. On Sunday, ComScore reported that online spending on Black Friday, Nov. 25, rose 26 percent from the same day last year, from $648 million to $816 million.

The author of "Everything You Wanted to Know About Social Media but Were Afraid to Ask," a book on how small business owners can successfully harness sites from Twitter to Tumblr, Topper is unimpressed by local business websites, many of which only have landing pages and little or no social media presence, while national retailers feature outstanding sites with a full blown social medial presence and great e-commerce, she said.

“There are some local shops who have websites, but they are hard to navigate or they don't have good search engine optimization,” Topper observed. “I even found some who just use Facebook and Twitter for awareness with no web site.”

Gary Pollakusky, a Long Beach resident who owns the social media-based company Media Barrel, also believes Cyber Monday demonstrates the need for local businesses to invest heavily in a strong web presence to compete in today’s online-driven world.

“Marketing has evolved from consumers learning about companies and products via traditional forms of advertising like billboards, radio and TV to inbound marketing, a two-way dialogue facilitated by social media allowing consumers to find, research and get a deeper, more personal understanding of a company and its wares,” Pollakusky said.

According to a National Retail Federation and Shop.org eHoliday survey, while consumers obtain information about retailers’ sales and promotions from various channels, nearly three in 10 (29.2%) will check a company’s Facebook page for more information, and about two-thirds (65.1%) will read customer reviews on the company’s website.

Pollakusky cited other research that found recommendations from family, friends or consumers posting their opinions online are trusted most when it comes to making buying decisions.  

“Businesses hesitant about developing and using social utilities will be less likely to gain sales from these consumers on Cyber Monday or any holiday for that matter,” he said.

So what is Pollakusky’s overall message to Long Beach businesses? He channels a lottery slogan: “Be in it to win it.”

“With over 800 million users on Facebook and 100 million active users on Twitter,” he concluded, “if you’re not playing in the sandbox of social media, you are not going to grow.”