E-COMMERCE EATING INTO ‘BLACK FRIDAY’ SHOPPING CRAZE

NEW YORK—THE US holiday shopping season officially opened with a deluge of “Black Friday” promotions but the frenzied crowds of the past have thinned out with the rise of e-commerce.

Companies in the retail, entertainment and tourism industries once again tried to entice shoppers after Thanksgiving with a bevy of offers on a day synonymous with American consumer culture and notorious “doorbuster” sales that start at the crack of dawn.

But US consumers aren’t buying Black Friday the way they once did.

Only 36 percent of US consumers plan to shop this year on Black Friday, down 1 percent from last year and a decline of 23 percent from 2015, according to a Pricewaterhousecoopers survey.

More symbolic

“Just a few years ago, Black Friday had the aura of a Fomo (fear of missing out) event,” PWC said. “Now it seems more symbolic than significant in the pantheon of retail holidays.”

Black Friday will be followed in three days by “Cyber Monday,” a second highpoint of spending early in the season.

The bigger emerging challenge for Black Friday has been shifting consumer patterns.

The PWC survey said that for the first time in 2019 more consumers (54 percent) said they’ll do more of their shopping online than in stores.

Online consumer spending on Thanksgiving day came in this year at $4.2 billion, up 14.5 percent from a year ago and the first time above $4 billion, according to Adobe Analytics.