Brick-and-mortar stores lost sales and traffic. Because the forecast is limited to in-store conditions, it does not capture the growing share of sales online. And the whole holiday hoopla associated with the long Thanksgiving-Black Friday weekend now seems more appropriate for an earlier era.
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Anecdotally, it appears the Black Friday bonanza is tempering as retailers react to consumers’ changing shopping habits.
“There’s a lot of strength in the consumer”, said Bill Martin, the co-founder of ShopperTrak.
Around 135.8 million citizens are supposed to shop in stores and online over this 4 day weekend. Forty-one million people (39.8%) said they shopped online on Thanksgiving Day and 75.3 million (73.1%) shopped online on Black Friday. That’s below the almost $381 figure last year, but the group also said this year’s spending number is not comparable to those in previous years. The average shopper shelled out $299.60 over the weekend, said the federation, which commissioned Prosper Insights & Analytics to conduct the survey.
In Denver early on Black Friday, the crowds were similarly thin.
Irish consumers are set to spend more than €40m on Cyber Monday.
ShopperTrak said buying is shifting away from the holiday weekend.
Alvaro Abrego takes a look at sweat trousers at the Dick’s Sporting Goods store at The Shops at Park Lane in Dallas.
Finally, those who went shopping via a desktop PC spent more than billion on Thanksgiving and Black Friday combined, research firm ComScore said Sunday.
“We recognize the Thanksgiving weekend shopping experience is much different than it used to be as just as many people want that unique, exclusive online deal as they do that in-store promotion”, NRF President Matthew Shay said. Black Friday is generally not the year’s biggest shopping day. But legions of shoppers still opened their wallets between Thanksgiving and Sunday, according to surveys and other data collected over the weekend about the retail industry’s annual frenzy of deals and discounts. In 2014, a few shoppers camped for two and even three nights outside local Best Buy stores to nab the best doorbuster deals. There may also be “social backlash against store openings on the holiday”.
That could be bad news for brick and mortar stores because online shoppers are more focused, said Ken Dalto, a Metro Detroit retail analyst. Black Friday sales were $2.74 billion, about 14 percent greater than a year ago, Adobe said. Mobile retailing continues to grow as more consumers rely on their smartphones and tablets. The NRF reported a 3.7 percent rise this year, “thanks to strong online sales”.
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“I like the people, I like to see people, and if I have a question I can get it answered right away; and sitting at home on a computer is not festive to me”, Batool Mir said smiling, while she stood with electronics in her cart. “More than half the sales of smartwatches will be in the fourth quarter”. Chris Christopher, director of consumer economics at consulting firm IHS, predicts that holiday season e-commerce sales will jump 11.7 percent this year to about $95 billion, up from last year’s 10.9 percent gain.
