Black Friday shoppers stayed home, delivering a feared blow to brick-and-mortar retailers on what usually is one of their biggest days of the year, the Financial Times (FT) reported.
About half as many shoppers as usual visited brick-and-mortar retail locations, the report stated.
“One of the worrying things for department stores is they don’t do as well at attracting consumers online, so the fact that footfall is very suppressed is really bad news for some of these stores,” Neil Saunders, retail managing director of GlobalData, told FT. “They’re not going to make it up online.”
FT reported that 50 percent year-over-year declines were reported by both RetailNext and Sensormatic Solutions, which base their analyses on video analysis of retail locations and data from electronic sensors, respectively.
Older shoppers, especially, stayed away from stores, FT reported.
Katherine Cullen, director of industry and consumer insights at the National Retail Federation, reportedly told the publication: “People very much seem to have heeded warnings to avoid crowded shopping and have understood that most of these deals are also available online.”
On the plus side for some merchants, Adobe reported that digital sales on Black Friday hit $9 billion — an increase of 22 percent from Black Friday 2019. Adobe reported that electronics sold especially well on Black Friday, with sales of smartwatches up seven-fold compared with a year prior.
Sales fell short of Adobe’s forecasts of $10.3 billion for the day. Adobe predicts Cyber Monday sales will reach $12.7 billion — an increase of 35 percent year over year.
PYMNTS research found that 25 percent of shoppers prefer shopping entirely digitally.
Meanwhile, some retailers are seeking to do away with the designations of “essential” and “non-essential” businesses as jurisdictions evaluate which may open or close.