Store Retail Sales Decline On Black Friday Weekend

‘Cyber Monday has always been our biggest single day for sales but the growing success of Black Friday illustrates that it has become a much anticipated date as the nation prepares for the festive season’.

(/Daily Free Press via AP). Its data showed spending per shopper in stores was down by 1.4 per cent.

Take Pia Tracy, who bought some items at Pier 1 home furnishings store over the weekend.

But analysts said this year many shoppers had chosen the internet over the high street. Calamity and chaos engulfed supermarkets and newspaper headlines last year, causing early Christmas shoppers to act more sensibly this year and make their purchases online.

As for how people are buying, the report says, it appears that it offers a good insight into consumer trends, with shopping done through smartphones accounting for 22pc of total sales across the two days, marking a 70pc increase on 2014.

Huge numbers of shoppers feasted on deals over Thanksgiving weekend, but how and when Americans did so has forever changed, as online activity exceeded store visits. And consumers responded by shopping earlier than ever.

“For new categories, historically, over half of the volume in early years shows up in the fourth quarter”, Shawn DuBravac, chief economist of the Consumer Technology Association, said on Sunday. The term Cyber Monday was coined a decade ago, when retailers noticed a spike in online holiday shopping on the Monday after Thanksgiving.

The latest evidence? More people shopped online over the Thanksgiving weekend than in stores, according to the National Retail Federation, the industry’s main trade group.

Last year, retailers experienced shoppers on Black Friday crowding some stores, so they hired more security staff this year to be ready for a repeat.

It also estimated that spending per person was $299.60.

The NRF also didn’t provide a total spending amount, something it included in past surveys.

The shoppers that did hit the mall last weekend may have kept a lid on spending.

Online sales jumped 14.3 percent on Friday compared with past year, according to Adobe. The average discount was slightly less than last year’s bargains-23 percent in 2015 vs. 25 percent in 2014-although discounts are expected to increase.

Year-over-year growth is getting increasingly harder to come by, as the weekend crowds proved.

The ritual of Black Friday – the post-Thanksgiving day that has long marked the beginning of the holiday season – also has changed.

Wilson said she found Friday’s deals were still available Sunday. No lines had more than a few customers.

“I think Black Friday is here to stay”, she said.