Shoppers hunt for deals across country

“We actually got a Crock Pot and a Keurig”, shopper Angie Rolon said.

Retailers with overstocked inventories have little choice but to move product, even if they have to lower prices, even as the need to protect margins and profits grows in a bumpy economic environment. This year, he’s doing his holiday shopping from his phone. It’s about the excitement and some say it’s an adrenaline rush to grab stuff and get the deals.

Saturday said the total represented a 21.6 percent increase from the same day of past year and 290 million dollars above the predicted 3.05 billion dollars sales for the traditional shopping day after Thanksgiving holiday. But the prospect of Cyber Monday had her brimming with optimism. Led by sales of Alexa-enabled devices like the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot, Amazon says that this year’s Thanksgiving Day sales over mobile exceeded mobile sales tallied last year on Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.

In the NY and Chicago areas, shoppers said stores were less busy than previous years on the day after the Thanksgiving holiday. On Wednesday, three times as many people were browsing online at retail sites compared with a year ago, according to Rakuten, which tracks online behaviour through the e-commerce platforms it provides. Toss in tablets and 77.8 percent of traffic on Thanksgiving came via a mobile device.

While these spending numbers set a new record, the USA still lags behind a number of other countries in online spending. They have been linking their stores and websites more closely and are finding ways to capitalize on the rise in mobile shopping.

Get Breaking News alerts from the Albany Herald delivered to your email. Its report is based on aggregated data from 22 billion visits to retail websites, and includes 80 percent of all online transactions from the top 100 US retailers. That includes online and store shopping.

Major retailers, like Amazon, Walmart, Target and eBay, noted that mobile traffic and sales were on the rise. In response, the Bentonville, Ark., chain gave users of its mobile app early access to its Black Friday deals. The estimate marks a 33 percent increase over last year’s mobile sales total for the day.

This year, early signs show USA merchants who do business online can look forward to enjoying a very lucrative weekend.

The week kicked off with customers visiting stores in the days leading up to Thanksgiving to grocery shop.

Administrative assistant Kelsey Gilford, 52, was shopping at Chicago’s Water Tower mall on Friday but had already made purchases online on Thursday.

When asked if she feared that trend could cause some stores to lose sales, she said she’s not too anxious.

To explore online shopping habits at work and how they align with corporate policies, Robert Half surveyed professionals and chief information officers. “Retailers know consumers are spreading out their holiday budgets to shop throughout the season”. This mean more people are inclined towards smartphones and tablets while shopping online. “There’s a social aspect to it that we really can’t underestimate”.

On Friday morning, Macy’s Inc. “I bought everything online”. “I think there’s better deals”.

“I don’t care to shop that much. We do it every year”. “While there’s no doubt of the incredible promotions offered during the weekend, the holiday shopping season is long, and consumers will look for and expect great deals down to the very last minute”.

“There’s still an emotional connection”, said Miller of Forrester.