More Black Friday spending moving to online

Over the weekend I received a torrent of emails from various vendors reporting metrics and estimates about sales and traffic sources.

As more Black Friday sales have shifted online, millions of shoppers still trekked to their favorite stores on the evening of Gray Thursday, Black Friday over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Some companies battled to keep their websites up and running on Black Friday.

“While more than 90 percent of shopping purchases are made in-store, shoppers’ use of mobile devices to research before and assist them during their shopping trips is now standard practice”, said John Dee, Chief Operating Officer of PlaceWise Media.

Also, shouldn’t we be outraged that the holiday shows us just how overpriced everything is every other day of the year?

A more accurate measure of holiday spending will not be available until the Department of Commerce releases retail spending figures next month for November, and for December in January.

Cyber Monday is expected to add to one of the busiest weekends for online shopping, following Black Friday.

Almost 102 million people said they shopped in stores during the Thanksgiving weekend, the trade group said, compared with more than 103 million who said they had shopped online.

Instead of lining up to storm the doors of brick-and-mortar stores on Black Friday, it appears that more people went online and stormed websites in search of bargains. “The decrease in shopper visits on Thanksgiving Day also lends itself to the social backlash against store openings on the holiday”.

The Black Friday from last year’s exhibited long tails of customers brawling in stores.

Business was slow on Thanksgiving night but picked up early Friday morning at the Toys ‘R Us in Clive, said manager Tim Beckman. The expected chaos on the high street nosedived, as shopper traffic saw 4.05% lower from a year ago, according to retail experts FootFall.

Warm weather and some recent speed bumps in job growth have affected retail sales during the fall, economists said. But Tracy, who lives in Queens, N.Y., plans to spread out the majority of her $4,000 holiday budget throughout the season.

This year, according to Kearns, shoppers were more conscious of sales, even before they began. According to preliminary numbers from the research firm ShopperTrak, sales fell to $10.4 billion this year, down from $11.6 billion in 2014.

As many Americans bought online as they did in physical stores during the Thanksgiving weekend shopping splurge, the National Retail Federation said Sunday, highlighting a growing trend away from the traditional Black Friday consumer assault.

“Over half of a new product’s sales generally come in the fourth quarter”, DuBravac said. Electronic commerce increased by 14.3 percent – bringing in .72 billion – on Friday compared to last year’s figures, the Associated Press reports.