Black Friday 2016

The news is starting to come in from the big turkey day shopping season and things are looking increasingly mobile.

Couple headlines for you, and I may add to these later.

First up is the decline of in-store sales this year:

http://www.mytotalretail.com/article/store-shopping-holiday-weekend/

Here is a snippet from that piece:

According to the National Retail Federation, 99.1 million people said they shopped in stores this past holiday weekend, which is down 3 million from last year. Of the four-day weekend, Black Friday was the most popular day to go shopping — 75 percent of the 99 million shopped on Black Friday, up 3.4 percent from last year. And despite Thanksgiving Eve doorbusters, that day only barely outpaced Sunday in terms of in-store traffic. About 40 percent of brick-and-mortar consumers ventured out on Saturday, 35 percent on Thanksgiving and 17 percent on Sunday, the data found.

Next is the increase in online sales this year:

http://www.mytotalretail.com/article/black-friday-thanksgiving-online-shopping-surpasses-5-billion-first-time/

Here is a snippet from that piece:

Adobe today released its 2016 online shopping data for Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day. More than $5 billion ($5.27 billion) was spent online by the end of Black Friday, a 17.7 percent increase year-over-year, according to data released by Adobe Digital Insights over the weekend. The $5.27 billion set a new record by surpassing the three-billion-dollar mark for the first time at $3.34 billion (21.6 percent growth YoY). Thanksgiving accounted for the remaining $1.93 billion, 11.5 percent more than in 2015 (but slightly lower than the $2 billion anticipated.) In addition, Black Friday became the first day in retail history to drive over $1 billion in mobile revenue at $1.2 billion, a 33 percent growth YoY.

So what's going on?  Seems obvious to me.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant