It seems that this Thanksgiving, many consumers chose to enjoy more family time while still capitalizing on some of those great Black Friday deals from the comfort of their home. All over the country, malls, for once, weren't crawling with crazed shoppers. Adobe stated that "shoppers spent $1.73 billion online on Thursday, 22% more than in 2014" a statement made after having tracked 180 million visits to more than 4,500 US retail websites. 60% of the shopping traffic this season came from mobile devices. Between midnight an 11am Friday morning, online sales grew by 15% than that of last year. Adobe projected that online sales for Black Friday will generate $2.6 billion in sales, that's a 14% increase compared to last year. Some of the top selling, hot-ticket online items included the Samsung 4K TV, Sony PlayStation 4, iPad Air 2, and Xbox One.
This year, discounts averaged out to be 26% off, increasing both brick and mortar and online sales, of which rose by 5% from last year to an average of $126. Doorbusters made up the other 40% of sales this shopping season.
For the last few seasons, it had been a trend to only brows on ones phone then make the purchase in person, but this season more purchases were made with mobile devices, instead of just browsing. About $0.37 of every dollar spend on Black Friday was spent online. The influx of purchases made on phones is due to the fact that in previous years consumers didn't have their credit card information in their phone, or didn't trust to put it there. Seeing as how the technology that enables the purchase of goods from a mobile device has now been around for a few seasons, consumers now readily have their credit card information ready to make a buy.
Something I wonder about, is as the years go on, following this increasing online shopping trend, could this provide stores incentives to lay off and hire less workers, especially around the holidays? In some stores I visited there appeared to be more workers than customers during the "frenzy shopping period".
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/business/black-friday-shopping-shifts-online-as-stores-see-less-foot-traffic.html?ref=business
7 comments:
I feel one of the reasons people preferred shopping online this Black Friday was the ease of paying through online/mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, Paypal etc. These services are more secured and convenient compared to carrying tons of credit cards and standing in long queues for the payments. Also, a lot of online sellers started offering their Black Friday deals sooner this season, for which sales might have gone up significantly.
I think eventually this will inevitably be the case as online shopping continues to become a vast part of the retail market. As Akram mentioned above, it is becoming much easier to pay online with all the mobile pay options and the discounts that are offered online. If retailers want to continue to keep customers coming into stores, sales for items need to be restricted to only in store. By doing so, this will force shoppers to come into these various retail stores instead of having the option to buy online instead. All of the online sales could be saved for cyber Monday, forcing shoppers who want to best deals on Black Friday to have to go to the retail stores.
I agree with both Ashley and Akram above. I think that inevitably online shopping will become the new social norm in the coming years. I think this is due to the fact that in a world of chaos, staying at home is much more appealing to consumers.
I also feel that two points to be brought up is that Cyber Monday has also become a bigger trend and stores are opening their doors sooner and sooner on Thanksgiving Day. I think due to these reasons, foot traffic on Black Friday has become less and less over the past couple of years. More and more people go out on Thursday night rather than waking up in the wee hours of Friday morning to do their holiday shopping or they just wait until Cyber Monday to buy everything for the holidays.
I am intrigued to see if the consumer confidence will rise due to the Black Friday weekend since it was down 8.7 points since October (Last updated November 24th, 2015). Currently, the index stands at 90.4 (1985 = 100) and was 99.1 in October of this year.
I think people are over the whole Black Friday deal. There have been many issues with stores opening incredibly early, along with backlash to that. I think by moving over to online, people will be more willing to shop and ultimately spend money. Stores need to figure out the proper formula in order to maximize profits.
I have noticed this trend pick up. Stores, online and at the mall, are offering more sales leading up to Black Friday with generally the best ones on that day. Since online shopping offers the same sale amount as in stores, people are saying so long to putting up with the crowds on the busiest shopping day of the year. What I have also noticed with this change was that since more people are buying online, Cyber Monday, a day where online shops are supposed to be at a seasonal low, aren't anymore due to the increased traffic on Black Friday.
The trend of shopping will only continue to grow larger over the years. If consumers are able to get the same products with the same discounts online then it is much easier for the them. Their shopping experience will be more pleasant and they won't need to wait in lines with traffic just to get the latest and greatest gifts.
With the advancement of mobile technology, specifically applications that have made wireless and online purchasing a lot easier and safer, online shopping is becoming more and more crucial to the retail market. There are a lot of companies which offers only online promotions that has discounts encouraging online shoppers to purchase more and more. I believe that there are a reasonable amount of people who wont change their shopping habits due to the accessibility of online purchase. I think it is a good thing that there is less foot traffic during Black Friday shopping since many minor casualties have occurred on Black Friday every year.
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