Black Friday online retail spend in the US exceeded $1 billion for the first time ever this year. This is according to a report by ComScore, which shows a 26% increase in online spend compared to Black Friday last year, which saw over $800 million in online retail spend.
According to ComScore, retail e-commerce spend for the first 23 days of the November-December holiday season has already exceeded $13.7 billion (a 16% increase compared to the same period last year).
ComScore chairman Gian Fulgoni says: "With Black Friday online sales up 26% and surpassing $1 billion for the first time, coupled with early reports indicating that Black Friday sales in retail stores were down 1.8%, we can now confidently call it a multi-channel marketing phenomenon."
Reuters cites ShopperTrak, which counts foot traffic in physical retail stores, as saying Black Friday sales estimates are at $11.2 billion (down 1.8% from last year). "Online has been around 9% of total holiday sales, but it could breach 10% for the first time this season," said chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, Scot Wingo.
In SA, some local retailers decided to jump on the Black Friday bandwagon, offering their own discounts - albeit not to the same degree as seen from retailers in the US.
Local online retailer Takealot.com offered its first Black Friday special deals this year, including discounts on selected products and free delivery for all orders placed on Friday. The site, however, struggled to cope with the increased traffic, and users reported numerous problems throughout the day on Friday. Other local retailers including DionWired, Incredible Connection and Esquire also ran promotions on the day.
In the US, Amazon is ranked as the most visited retail site on Black Friday, and also notched up the highest year-on-year visitor growth rate. Other retailers in the top five were Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Apple.
Apparel and accessories rank as the top category for online spend on Black Friday this year, accounting for over a quarter of all dollars spent. ComScore says digital content and subscriptions are the top-growing retail product categories (up 29% year-on-year). This is said to be driven by the rapid adoption of smartphones, tablets and e-readers.
Cyber Monday
ComScore says that according to the trends it has observed over the last three years, Cyber Monday is expected to be the heaviest online shopping day of the season, with sales expected to be around the $1.5 billion mark, or higher.
Cyber Monday is described as the "centrepiece" of the online holiday shopping season. The term was first coined by Shop.org (retailers' online trade body) in 2005 when it noticed a spike in online retail after the Thanksgiving holiday in the US.
ComScore explains: "The day signified the first big spike in spending, but it was often bested by several other days in December. From 2005-2007, Cyber Monday ranked between 8th and 12th among all spending days by the time the season had concluded. However, its status changed in a significant way during the midst of the 2008 financial crisis.
"Consumers were fearful of the economy being in a free-fall and it seemed that nobody wanted to open up their wallets. So retailers responded by offering very attractive discounts and ramping up promotional activity around Cyber Monday.
"As a result, the day became much more important to the season as a whole and finished the year as the third heaviest spending day. A similar trend continued in 2009 when it ranked second, and then it finally emerged to take the crown as the heaviest day of the season in 2010 - a feat it repeated in 2011."
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