Once Again, Online Shopping Surges While Traffic To Stores Declines

As the holiday shopping season shifted into full gear last week, consumers headed straight for the deals — but showed a strong preference for making their purchases via online and mobile.

On Sunday (Nov. 27), the National Retail Federation released data showing that roughly 109 million people shopped online during Thanksgiving weekend, compared to the 99 million consumers that shopped in stores.

“It was a strong weekend for retailers, but an even better weekend for consumers, who took advantage of some really incredible deals,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said in a statement. “In fact, over one-third of shoppers said 100 percent of their purchases were on sale.”

“With mid-season shopping behind us, it’s not too late for retailers to tweak their online and in-store strategies to help increase traffic and see a big payoff during the last few weeks of the holiday season,” Shay added.

According to The Wall Street Journal, traffic at shopping malls and retail centers was thinner this holiday season, especially since many retailers offered discounts earlier in November or made similar in-store deals available online as well.

Analytics firm RetailNext found that internet sales surpassed $3 billion for the first time on Black Friday this year, while net sales at brick-and-mortar stores fell 5 percent over Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. The number of transactions over the two days also fell by 7.9 percent.

Years ago, Black Friday was considered the start of the holiday season, but this year, more stores opened their doors on Thanksgiving and started making holiday deals available earlier in the month, Reuters reported.

“We knew it [holiday season] was going to be off to a slow start,” Shelley Kohan, vice president of retail consulting at RetailNext, explained.

“The first couple of weeks with the election were a complete distracter from the normal course of business and … a warmer climate in November may have made the sales more stubborn,” she noted, adding that sales are expected to rise in December.