“Last year, we didn’t do as good as we did on Black Friday, but we still did a very hefty amount of sales”, she said.
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Still, brick-and-mortar stores held some sway with shoppers Friday.
But it predicts the number of people visiting stores will rise this week as they collect products ordered online.
This hurt customer turnout on Black Friday last year, a trend analysts and consultants expect will repeat this year.
The absence of throngs of shoppers on Black Friday or during the rest of Thanksgiving weekend shouldn’t be a cause for alarm since many retailers have started opening on Thanksgiving evening and are staggering their online offers to spread out their sales. “On behalf of all of us at Amazon and our many hundreds of sellers who are also offering great deals, we would like to thank our customers for choosing to shop with us and for making it a day for the record books”, Christopher North, managing director of Amazon UK, told the Press Association. “Simply put, the consumer is becoming much more savvy and sophisticated, reducing the need to wait in-line”, said Chen.
Last year’s Black Friday saw shoppers in the United Kingdom fighting over bargains in some stores, leading some retailers to hire extra security staff over the weekend to prevent a repeat.
Shay said, based on his own observations and those of other industry CEOs, four things stood out about the weekend.
“They’re trying to both protect their stores – the traffic going to their physical store – but also recognizing they have to compete with online stores”, he said.
As Rosie Silva walked around Sears Thursday night, she said it was the first time in five years she’s been part of the early Christmas season shopping frenzy – in the past largely a Black Friday event.
While Black Friday may be losing some appeal in the United States, British shoppers have taken to the concept enthusiastically, with reports of large crowds at big stores and malls in the UK.
People line up for hours to avail of Black Friday sales, and many a fight have been known to break out between shoppers for an item of common interest.
Those shopping on any mobile devices made up 34 percent of the sales across this two-day period.
Tony and Angie Russell traveled all the way from England to Las Vegas for the Black Friday sales. The report tracks spending by combining sales activity in MasterCard’s payments network with estimates of cash and other payment forms. For October 2015 sales excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials and food services – the so-called core retail sales figure – rose 0.2 percent from a year earlier.
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With too many games getting its release this holiday season, it needs to be seen if Microsoft will continue to rule the throne or give way for PS4 in the upcoming months. This year, the NRF is forecasting sales growth of 3.7 percent, down from 4.1 percent in 2014, a deceleration it has attributed to slow job creation and household income growth.
