Black Friday’s Net gain
Record $9B online as in-person craters
Shoppers set a new record for spending on Black Friday, but this year, it was online.
Nervous about the coronavirus, Black Friday shoppers avoided the stores and took to their keyboards on what is normally the busiest shopping day of the year.
Online sales reached $9 billion on the day after Thanksgiving, up 22 percent from last year’s $7.4 billion, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks Web site sales from 80 of the top 100 US online retailers.
The surge, which meant US consumers were spending at least $6.3 million per minute, made Black Friday 2020 the second-largest online spending day in US history, behind Cyber Monday last year.
And that record is likely to be broken tomorrow, with spending predicted to range between $10.8 billion and $12.7 billion, up as much as 35 percent from last year.
It was the first time web shoppers spent more than in-person gift hunters on Black Friday. In fact, Friday’s in-store traffic plunged more than 52 percent, according to Sensormatic Solutions, a retail analytics provider.
Brian Field, senior director of global retail consulting for the firm, said the traffic drop wasn’t a surprise.
“Shoppers told us that they were not going to be shopping on Black Friday,” he said.
Instead, virus-wary consumers will be spreading out their visits to stores and hoping to avoid crowds. Expect more weekday shopping and fewer weekend excursions.
The Black Friday online surge followed a record-breaking Thanksgiving day online, said Kristin McGrath, an online shopping expert at Ziff Media Group and editor at BlackFriday.com. Adobe Analytics said shoppers spent a record $5.1 billion on the holiday.
She noted most stores did not open on Thanksgiving Day this year — Sensormatic said Thanksgiving foot traffic plummeted 95 percent — but with fewer family gatherings, more shoppers had time to browse online.
“In past years we’ve seen a lot of online shopping on Thanksgiving,” McGrath said. “This year we saw even more.”
Game consoles, TVs, kitchen equipment, smart speakers, laptops and printers were among the hot items for those looking at staying at home even more this winter.
Mayor de Blasio showed up at the Strand Bookstore to promote Small Business Saturday, but many local shops are also offering web deals in hopes of taking in some online spending.
The new spending record could fall on Cyber Monday. The National Retail Federation predicted online sales would grow at least 30 percent for the season, to $218.4 billion.