National CRE News In Your Inbox.
Sign up for Connect emails to stay informed with CRE stories that are 150 words or less.
Black Friday, Thanksgiving Day Mall Traffic Down, Online Sales Soar
The key holiday shopping weekend opened with an interesting twist. Foot traffic at malls and stores dropped, as consumers headed online in 2018.
A preliminary report by ShopperTrak showed shoppers’ visits to physical stores on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday declined 1% year-over-year, with store visits on Black Friday down 1.7% alone.
ShopperTrak’s Brian Field told CNBC, “We know that online sales … has certainly eroded traffic from retailers over the years. But, what we have noticed is that the decline is starting to flatten out.” In 2017, for example, visits to physical stores Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday were down 1.6%.
Meanwhile, Adobe Analytics reported online sales on Black Friday jumped 23.6% from a year ago, pulling in a record $6.22 billion. The Friday after Thanksgiving was also the first day in history to record more than $2 billion in sales from smartphones. Adobe says 33.5% of e-commerce sales Friday came from mobile devices, compared with 29.1% in 2017.
Adobe noted that online prices on Thanksgiving Day “were as low as on Black Friday” for the first time, which potentially stole shoppers away from malls and stores.
The numbers for Small Business Saturday were tracking toward a new record of $3 billion in online sales. Additionally, Adobe Analytics predicts Cyber Monday sales online are expected to set a new record of $7.8 billion, up nearly 18% from last year.
For comments, questions or concerns, please contact Dennis Kaiser
