The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Retailers yesterday said Cyber Monday sales exceeded expectations as reduced prices and service deals drove increased consumer demand.

Alphanique Duncombe-Spence, BTC’s ‘go to market’ executive senior manager, told Tribune Business that the carrier’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales were driven by its offering of services deals and reduced prices on mobile devices.

“What we did is we extended our sales from Black Friday on through the weekend into Cyber Monday,” she added. “So we are still getting a good flow of traffic, particularly for postpaid sales and our broadband sales as well, because we still have our double speeds running through from November 24 until the end of December.

“So what we have been seeing is a shift from Black Friday from prepaid sales, and more so into our postpaid and our fixed sales. So right now for postpaid sales, our postpaid sales are double our normal short sales trends. Over the weekend, with the advertisement about double speeds, we’ve had an increase in our fixed sales and how they were trending for the month.

“So for the month of November, our fixed sales were moving steady, but a little bit behind,” Ms Duncombe-Spence said. “But the weekend, once we put out the double speeds, we started to see those numbers take us right back into our normal trends.

“The trend that we’re running right now, we should and we will exceed what our expectations were for this month of November, which is not normally the trend for this time of the year. Usually, persons are more interested in mobile sales, so what we are seeing is an uplift in broadband sales for November and December, which is not normally the season.”

BTC is enjoying a stronger impact on its revenues this year because it has added deals on services in addition to the traditional price options on mobile devices. “While the device sales drive acquisitions on gross adds, what we’re seeing is that we’re still getting the acquisition, but what we’re also doing is driving revenue,” Ms Duncombe-Spence said.

For future Black Friday and Cyber Monday events, BTC will continue to provide service deals along with discounted mobile prices. These offers will continue through to December as well.

Brent Burrows junior, CBS Bahamas vice-president of retail and sales, said: “We really had a good reception for our Cyber Monday. A lot of people were up from midnight on Sunday trying to place their order, so we were impressed by it.”

This year’s Cyber Monday sales were better than the previous two years that CBS Bahamas has participated. “We skipped last year, so it’s better than the 2021 Cyber Monday,” Mr Burrows said.

“People have been picking up orders all day and, once they order online, they are able to pick up their orders a couple of hours later or whenever we opened. We also were able to deliver a few of the orders. People are very happy with how it’s going and it’s been a very smooth process.”