After all the hype, commercials and news reports advertising incredible sales on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, the National Retail Federation (NRF) suggests that there were fewer sales and shoppers this year than in 2013.
It has been reported that the NRF discovered 5.1 million fewer people shopping on Black Friday, a seven percent drop from last year. On Thanksgiving Day, there were 1.8 million fewer shoppers compared to a year ago. Furthermore, the overall long weekend traffic was down by roughly five percent.
Over the course of the four days, shoppers spent an average of $380.95, a drop of 6.4 percent from 2013.
The NRF tracks customer visits to stores and sales by using surveys conducted with 4,500 American consumers. However, some analysts are alluding to another survey by Shoppertrak, which found that Thanksgiving Day traffic was up 27 percent – the organization uses data provided by stores instead of customers.
Business experts note that there are two potential reasons for this possible decline: online shopping and week-long deals.
First, preliminary figures from comScore highlight that online sales on Thanksgiving reached $1 billion and on Black Friday sales exceeded $1.5 billion, a respective growth of 32 percent and 26 percent from last year. Instead of waiting outside in the cold, shoppers are simply making a few clicks to buy stuff for Christmas and save some dough, though the average shopper spent $159.55 at online retailers, down 10.2 percent from last year.
Second, retailers aren’t using Black Friday exclusively for sales. Numerous stores are offering week-long and even month-long sales events to draw in customers that pretty much mimic the discounts offered on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, excluding the doorbusters.
Merchants are in it for the long run as some industry leaders have likened the shopping season as a marathon instead of a sprint.
With Cyber Monday upon us, there have been mixed feelings about its success this year. Some experts say the trend of Cyber Monday getting bigger will continue this year, while others say there will be a slump in sales. “It’s safe to assume that as consumer demand drives this 24/7 seamless, frictionless get-it-how-you-want-it environment that Cyber Monday will continue to evolve as well,” Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the retail federation, told CNN Money.
