The verdict is in: Black Friday performed well but did not vindicate retail pressures this year. The New York Times reports that combined sales for Friday and Saturday were up nearly 2 percent from the period a year ago, specialty apparel sales were up 1.6 percent compared with last year, and luxury goods rose 2.4 percent. But WWD reported hefty losses in shares despite heavy foot traffic on Friday and Saturday. Even mild and unexpected profits from last year could not plug the bottom line from plummeting – for brick-and-mortar retail stores that is.
According to today’s story in the Media Post News, ‘Consumers Search, Spend on Cyber Monday,’ online sales on Cyber Monday showed much more promise. Cyber Monday is a term that was coined by the trade group National Retail Federation in 2005 as a day that unofficially kicked off online shopping following Thanksgiving weekend.
Consumers spent 27% more this year compared to 2007 via the 28 retailers Seattle-based Mercent, an online marketing company serving the retail industry.
Online loyalty marketing service MyPoints said traffic rose 7% from Cyber Monday in 2007 and unique visitors increased 15% over site traffic last year. MyPoints is a site letting consumers earn points when they shop that are redeemable for gas cards, airline miles, hotel discounts, or gift cards to nearly 100 stores and restaurants.
Some online-only retailers such as Amazon.com scored big even on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
Overall web traffic for brick-and-mortar store Web sites declined 16 % on Thanksgiving and 10% on Black Friday compared with the same period a year ago, but visits to online-only retailers rose 11% on Thanksgiving and 10% on Black Friday, according to Hitwise.
Following Black Friday following Cyber Monday is Green Monday: December 15th. Green Monday is anticipated to be a big shopping day for procrastinators taking advantage of the last day for free shipping before the holidays.
