Slow start to US in-store holiday season sales
LESS SHOPPER VISITS: Internet purchases, however, surpass US$3b for first time
SALES and traffic at United States brick-and-mortar stores on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday declined from last year, as stores offered discounts well beyond the weekend and more customers shopped online.
Internet sales rose in the double digits on both days, surpassing US$3 billion (RM13.41 billion) for the first time on Black Friday, according to data released on Saturday.
Data from analytics firm RetailNext showed net sales at brick-andmortar stores fell five per cent over the two days, while the number of transactions fell 7.9 per cent.
Preliminary data from retail research firm ShopperTrak showed that shopper visits to such stores fell a combined one per cent during Thanksgiving and Black Friday when compared with the same days last year.
The data highlighted the waning importance of Black Friday, which until a few years ago kicked off the holiday shopping season, as more retailers started discounting earlier in the month and opened their doors on Thanksgiving Day.
“We knew it (holiday season) was going to be off to a slow start,” said Shelley Kohan, vice-president of retail consulting at RetailNext.
“The first couple of weeks with the election were a complete distracter from the normal course of business and... a warmer climate this month may have made the sales more stubborn,” she said, adding that she expected sales picking up next month.
Net sales on Black Friday slid 10.4 per cent for brick-and-mortar chains, according to RetailNext.
“Stores that opened on Thursday were not very busy on Black Friday... and while the Thanksgiving Day optouts were busier on Black Friday, they didn’t see the crowds they saw in previous years,” said NPD group chief industry analyst Marshal Cohen.
Still, total holiday season sales were expected to jump 3.6 per cent to US$655.8 billion this year, according to the National Retail Federation, due to a tightening job market.
Thanksgiving and Black Friday online sales tracked by Adobe Digital Index were US$5.27 billion, up 18 per cent from a year earlier and higher than its prior estimate of US$5.05 billion.
Black Friday sales rose 21.6 per cent to US$3.34 billion while spending via mobile devices surged 33 per cent to an all-time high of US$1.2 billion.
“Shoppers hit the buy button at unprecedented levels as conversion rates were up nearly a full per cent across all devices in the evening hours on Black Friday,” said Adobe Digital Insights analyst Tamara Gaffney in the statement.
Adobe said it tracked 80 percent of all online transactions at the top 100 US retailers.