Marketing and all things related

It's Cyber Monday, and even though 72% of online retailers surveyed by the National Retail Federation claimed that they would be offering sales and special Cyber Monday deals, many of those deals will extend throughout the holiday season.

One of the online deals I like this holiday season is the PayPal holiday promotions.  PayPal has a special website set up where customers can look up which online retailers are offering discounts or other promotions to consumers who pay for purchases through those retailers with PayPal.  In fact, 14 online retailers are offering a full 20% off if you pay with PayPal (including popular stores such as Toys R Us, Barnes & Noble, The Sharper Image and more), and others are offering specific dollar amounts off purchases, no payments for 90 days or free shipping. 

I also like how the PayPal holiday promotion website is set up, so users can find deals by the type of promotion, product category or person they need to buy for (mom, dad, boy, girl, etc.).  A search feature is also included as well as a special sweepstakes. 

I made the mistake of going to my local Toys R Us store today to try to get a lot of shopping done for my children for the upcoming holiday, and I can attest to the fact that Toys R Us is one store that is not offering widespread, attractive sales in their brick-and-mortar locations.  After spending $800, I was told that the $10 off coupon I had planned to use expired two days ago.  I fell for the coupon's misleading copy that highlighted $10 off and the expiration date of 12/31/07.  It turns out, the $10 was offered as a gift certificate if you made a purchase greater than $100 by the coupon expiration date of 11/24/07, and that $10 gift certificate is what actually expired on 12/31/07. 

It just goes to show, even marketers can fall for other marketers' cleverly disguised copy.  If only I had known about the PayPal and Toys R Us 20% off promotion before I bought two cart loads of presents today.