The Thanksgiving weekend is less than four weeks away. There are many things you can do to drive increased revenue this holiday season. To see what your competitors did last year see the slide shows at the end of this post.

Thanksgiving weekend is traditionally very promotional – especially on Cyber Monday. Almost all retailers email on Cyber Monday, and most offer a promotion. If you aren’t promotional, you may want to mail on a different day so that you stand out from the crowd. Without an offer on Cyber Monday, your email will get lost. Last year 32% of retailers offered free shipping on all orders for Cyber Monday – in addition to other promotions (according to shop.org’s 2008 Holiday Strategy & Planning Guide .)

Use your home page and email to give customers information about offline Thanksgiving weekend shopping in your stores. Even if your online group doesn’t “get credit” for those sales, your customers expect that your website is an information source for ALL channels. Many consumers last year prepared for offline Thanksgiving weekend shopping by first consulting information online. Newspapers and catalogs are still important, but the shift online continues. According to shop.org 75% of consumers surveyed consulted the retailer’s Web site to research products and special offers before heading out to shop offline on Black Friday and 61% also consulted emails that they received from retailers for this purpose. Last year retailers missed the boat on their home page promotions to drive offline shopping – 43% sent emails with offline shopping information, but only 20% included messaging on their home page about offline offers and other related information. (See also the home page archive at the bottom of this post.) Get it right this year. Create a dedicated email and home page to specifically feature information for shoppers planning to buy offline – not just the promotions but also critical offline features like store pick up options, store locators, maps, directions and store hours. Try to find the store locator on many websites. It’s nearly impossible. Put a big button for store locators on your Thanksgiving Day site.

Give customers a good reason to shop online while brick and mortar stores are closed on Thanksgiving day.

Want to see what your competitors did last year? Check out these two albums with over 100 of the top internet retailers’ home pages for 2007 Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Black Friday

Black Friday 2007 – Full Album on Picasa

Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday 2007 – Full Album on Picasa

You can also see more at

http://thisweekinetail.blogspot.com/