Share

Black Friday brawl at Florence Mall

Their figures don’t include e-commerce.

Advertisement

Both companies said shoppers filled their virtual shopping carts on their smartphones and tablets more than laptop and desktop computers.

Britons splashed out on “Black Friday” bargains on Friday but many opted to go online rather than head to the shops for an event imported from the United States that has become a key feature of the UK retail calendar.

Retail giant Amazon reported record figures on Friday, with more than six million items ordered, leading to its biggest sales day ever in the UK.

A year ago it said it found overall shopper traffic on Black Friday fell 14 percent, but that the average shopper spending rose 1.9 percent.

Tom Grau said police received calls between 1 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. Friday about a brawl in the mall.

Tesco replied to the customer on social media, explaining that the store opened at 5am for those who wished to partake in Black Friday, but would not open to other shoppers until 7am. “When you run that many doorbusters, can they really be that special?”

“The numbers are down but it’s still a better sales trend during the two days than we have seen for physical retail through the year and especially after a very hard summer and October”, Shelley Kohan, vice president of retail consulting at RetailNext, said.

Online retailers have been bombarding customers with email discounts for weeks. “Heading into Cyber Monday, online only retailers will take center stage and we are still calling for Cyber Monday to be the largest online day of the year, breaking the $3 billion mark and representing 12 percent YoY growth”. We believe, for the most part, the consumer was able to resist these early promotions and instead waited until Thanksgiving to begin her holiday shopping.

Santa Clause welcomed shoppers into the Outlets of MS as the holiday shopping season officially kicked off.

Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst, Adobe Digital Index, said, “US consumers have turned into digital shopping ninjas this holiday season as retailers continue to adjust to a huge influx of smartphone shoppers”. Similar deals were offered previous year, the first in which retail recreational marijuana sales opened.

Retailers have also started offering deep discounts as early as Halloween, even advertising them as “Black Friday” deals, Martin said.

There was no repeat of last year’s Black Friday madness at Blackpool supermarkets.

“For new categories, historically, over half of the volume in early years shows up in the fourth quarter”, Shawn DuBravac, chief economist of the Consumer Technology Association, said on Sunday.

Advertisement

It appears American’s are wasting no time getting into the holiday spirit.

The queue outside the Tesco Extra in Newcastle's Kingston Park before the doors opened on Black Friday. Tom Wilkinson  PA Wire