“We’ve shifted the shopping patterns where now the doors open and the shoppers flock in on Thanksgiving, and we saw a resurgence of that when we opened the doors again on Black Friday”, Bisenius said. Online sales jumped 14.3 percent on Friday compared with previous year, according to Adobe, which tracked activity on 4,500 retail websites.
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ShopperTrak said Thanksgiving and Black Friday generated $1.8 billion and $10.4 billion in sales respectively.
Debra Goolsby woke up at 5 a.m. Thursday, as so many other Black Friday shoppers did, in search of once-a-year bargains on gifts big and small.
Target Corp. has countered by providing free shipping and returns on its holiday orders, while Wal-Mart plans to offer more than four times as many discounts as past year on the Monday following the Thanksgiving weekend.
Kearns added that crowds were thinner this year, especially on Thanksgiving Day, due to “backlash against store openings on the holiday”. That was in line with a recent survey by the Deloitte consulting firm that found that among holiday weekend shoppers, 44 percent planned to shop in-store on Black Friday – a decline from 63 percent in 2012.
Still, most analysts expect this year’s holiday sales to show stronger growth than last year’s. ShopperTrak has 1,200 members, including retailers and malls, in the U.S and overseas. The Chicago-based company has more than 200 employees, with offices in San Francisco; High Wycombe, England; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Shenzhen, China; Mexico City, Mexico; and Helsinki, Finland.
Crowds in some malls and shopping districts were thinner than normal on Friday, according to initial reports from both Reuters and The Wall Street Journal.
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.
Visa Europe predicts shoppers will spend £721m online on its cards today, up from £616m past year. “Simply put, the consumer is becoming much more savvy and sophisticated, reducing the need to wait in-line”, said Chen. “I feel the economy has picked up in a few areas, and I felt the pull of the holiday spirit”, she said.
“It started out very very well which we were kind of curious to see how it went because every where starts opening this year at different times”, said Aeropostale Store Mananger Megan Harper.
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Some shoppers News 9 talked to say those deals were worth standing outside in the rain and cold. He said midnight after Thanksgiving was by far the biggest rush.
