Shoppers turned out in significantly lower numbers on Black Friday at brick and mortar stores this year. According to data from retail research firm, ShopperTrak, sales at brick and mortar stores suffered a decline in excess of $1 billion. Though sales figures remained significantly high, shoppers decided to beat the crowds, indicating a sea change in consumer behavior,
Sectoral trends suggest that significant purchases are made earlier in the month. The focus has shifted with discounts now being offered from the beginning of November. Additionally, online sales have witnessed a considerable uptrend. It seems that customers have decided to beat the in-store rush and shop earlier or buy from the comfort of their homes.
Slide in Brick and Mortar Sales
ShopperTrak data shows that sales at physical stores on Black Friday declined to $10.4 billion from $11.6 billion recorded last year. Additionally, sales on Thanksgiving Day declined from more than $2 billion to $1.8 billion. Taken together, brick and mortar sales declined from the $12.29 billion recorded during the same period last year to $12.1 billion.
Data from other agencies also shows a decline over the Thanksgiving sales weekend as a whole. Data from analytics agency RetailNext showed that sales for Thanksgiving and Black Friday have declined by 1.5%. This was caused by a 1.8% decline in customer traffic on Black Friday. Footfall remained flat on Thanksgiving on a year-over-year basis. Average expenditure per customer declined by 1.4%.
Shoppers Shrug Off Early Black Friday Discounts
Like every other year, retailers had gone all out to attract crowds of shoppers during the Thanksgiving weekend. This included such deals as a 50-inch Samsung smart TV for $500 from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. WMT. Best Buy Co. BBY was selling quadcopter drones at a $200 discount. Meanwhile, Target Corp. TGT offered a buy one and receive the next at half the price offer on Star Wars toys deal.
But most early Black Friday discounts were ignored. The situation was not bad for all stores, with Toys R Us witnessing a large queue at its Times Square outlet in New York. However, crowds were thinner overall, resulting in a significant decline in sales.
Jump in Online Sales
Two major trends emerged from this year’s Thanksgiving weekend sales data. First, consumers have decided to avoid the Black Friday mayhem and take advantage of pre-holiday sales offers. Second, a large chunk of purchases has moved to the online domain.
Online purchases touched the $4.45 billion mark during Thanksgiving and Black Friday, per data from Adobe ADBE. Sales worth $1.73 billion were made on Thanksgiving while $2.72 billion was spent online on Black Friday. This represents year-on-year increases of 25% and 14%, respectively. Also, the value of an average order rose 9% to $162 on Thanksgiving, while it declined by 2% to $141 on Black Friday.
Omnichannel Strategy Gains Prominence
Meanwhile, data from Channel Advisor revealed an interesting trend. Online retailers such as eBay Inc. EBAY and Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN have posted strong sales numbers during this period. Retailers using multiple sales channels have also met with substantial success. These companies, which are being called omnichannel players, utilized their brick and mortar stores and online promotions to push sales.
Best Buy and Sears Holdings Corporation SHLD have successfully integrated physical presence and online outreach to boost sales during this period. In the years to come, it seems that such a strategy will become the watchword for the physical format stores.
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