More shoppers spent less on Black Friday in the US – and more was spent online than ever before.
Those are the key take-outs from the three day long shopping extravaganza, which is being followed up by Cyber Monday giving Americans a second chance at scoring shopping bargains.
But perhaps the biggest trend this year was how Black Friday was adopted internationally – even as far away from America as Vietnam, shopping centres were packed with bargain hunters, lured by billboards promising as much as 50 per cent off stock.
According to data from the National Retail Federation, more than 154 million US consumers shopped last Friday, spending an average $289 – $11 less than last year. Gifts accounted for $214 of that spend.
“It was a strong weekend for retailers, but an even better weekend for consumers, who took advantage of some really incredible deals,” said NRF president and CEO Matthew Shay.
Most of the shopping occurred Friday, perhaps reflecting the limited stock of some retail deals. The NRF said of the consumers who went to physical stores, 75 per cent shopped on Friday, 40 per cent on Saturday and 17 per cent on Sunday.
And the data showed a continuing migration from offline to online. Last year, 103 million people shopped online and 102 million in stores. This year more than 108 million shopped online and 99 million in stores.
Adobe released data based on anonymous tracking of 22.6 billion visits to retail websites, showing more than $5 billion was spent online over the holiday weekend – and a record $3.34 billion on Friday. Mobile devices accounted for $1.2 billion of the weekend sales.
