Although Black Friday is a massively popular day for shopping, most stores see more foot traffic as it gets closer to Christmas.
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Along with releasing a slew of shopping data (shown below), Google also just announced a new way for advertisers to measure their Black Friday success.
Next, Google recommends avoid consumer electronics and cell phone stores, as those stores are swamped more so than any other kind of store on Black Friday.
Using anonymized data pulled from Google Maps, the search company is predicting when and where we are most likely to shop during the 21015 holiday season, and some of those predictions are surprising.
Meanwhile, department stores, dollar stores and superstores/discount stores have busier days than Black Friday.
If you used Google Maps to coordinate a holiday shopping binge previous year between November 1 and December 25, there’s a reasonable chance Google is using your location data to predict 2015 shopping patterns.
Store traffic peaks between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Black Friday, with Thanksgiving Day department store visitors peaking between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.
The first thing that Google suggests is that you should avoid going out on Friday in the afternoon.
According to Google’s mobile traffic data, many stores don’t see their biggest store traffic spikes until the Saturday before Christmas, making Black Friday look like child’s play.
Four in ten said they had no intention of waiting until Black Friday to purchase gifts, while another 40% said they “might” make a purchase if something caught their eye on the day but they would not base their purchasing plans around it.
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Finally, Google reminds us that we should check in-store availability for an item before rushing out to the store.
