Store retailers saw fewer customer visits on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, compared with past year, according to Kevin Kearns, research firm ShopperTrak’s chief revenue officer.
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Sales at USA brick and-mortar stores on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday were marginally down from a year ago, yet the performance was still seen as solid in a Christmas shopping season where discounts spread well past the weekend.
Biggest Loser: Undoubtedly it was Black Friday, which became a victim of retailers’ success at extending the traditional focal point of the holiday selling season with Thanksgiving Day and pre- and post-weekend promotions. An analysis of Thanksgiving Day sales shows that the totals fell from slightly over $2 billion in 2014 to $1.8 billion this year.
Preliminary numbers also indicate a decrease in in-store foot traffic on both dates, further supporting the perceived shift in shopping habits.
‘The growth of click and collect in supporting store visits should not be underestimated, particularly for retail parks, with many shoppers now opting to buy online but to then visit stores to pick up their purchases’.
The NRF president said in a statement, “It is clear that the age-old holiday tradition of heading out to stores with family and friends is now equally matched in the new tradition of looking online”.
That could be bad news for brick and mortar stores because online shoppers are more focused, said Ken Dalto, a Metro Detroit retail analyst. “With so many consumers relying on their smartphone for everything from travel to email, the convenience of enhanced mobile shopping appeals to consumers and has changed who and where people shop”. Order growth and average order value also rose on Black Friday this year – at 15.6% and 0.5%, respectively.
Currys PC World also reported its biggest-ever start to Black Friday with eight sales per second and 100 large screen TVs selling per minute online.
CE plays an even more crucial role online, where 76 percent of all online holiday expenditures go to just 1 percent of product SKUs – and 60 percent of that 1 percent is comprised of tech devices, according to the Adobe Digital Index.
A more accurate measure of holiday spending will not be available until the Department of Commerce releases retail spending figures next month for November, and for December in January.
As a result of the surge in online sales experts have forecast a total four-day spend of £3.2bn from Black Friday to Cyber Monday.
With Black Friday behind us, it’s time for more heavily-hyped discount shopping for Cyber Monday.
When it comes to when people showed up to shop on Thanksgiving Day, the survey found almost half (49.2%) said they arrived at the store at or before midnight to begin shopping.
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But in 2014, the average person who shopped spent $380.95 compared to $407.02 a year earlier in 2013.
