Black Friday ecommerce swells as shop footfall declines
Retailers that had a digital strategy in place benefitted from increased online and mobile spend during the Black Friday and Thanksgiving weekend in the US.
Black Friday ecommerce jumps as shop footfall declines
Reuters reports that Americans opted to remain at home and browse goods through digital platforms, which resulted in reduced in-store footfall.
Adobe Analytics data said online sales in the US had risen by 23% year-on-year to $6bn. The company tracks 80% of the US's top 100 retailers. Thanksgiving also saw a boon of 28% to $3.7bn.
RetailNext research stated that net sales at brick-and-mortar stores fell 4%-7% during the weekend - a result of traffic dropping between 5%-9%.
Brian Field, senior director of advisory services at ShopperTrak, optimistically said that the decline in physical retail is starting to "flatten out".
Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, told CBSNews that the increased US spend was a result of economic growth. "The economy is strong and consumers are confident," he added. "It also bodes well for Christmas as it suggests that consumers have yet to run out of steam."
On Black Friday, Amazon said it had shifted more than one million toys and 700,000 fashion items in just the first nine hours of business. It will have used the deals to drives its lucrative of loyalty incentive Amazon Prime subscription program.
Meanwhile, in the UK, data from Barclaycard suggested that UK consumers were spending more - it said it was down 12% year-on-year. It had processed "a higher number of less expensive purchase".
The BBC also reported data from Springboard that said that shop footfall was down by 7% year-on-year.