Black Friday sales down despite higher foot traffic at stores

Consumers in the US were out in full force on Black Friday, and Shopper Track reported foot traffic in stores was 3.5 per cent higher over Black Friday 2011, sales though, were down from last year.

Analysts attribute the anomaly to Thanksgiving night sales eating into Friday shopping and online shopping making a significant dent.

Data from the National Retail Federation (NRF) show 27 per cent of consumers shopped online for Thanksgiving and 47.5 per cent shopped online on Black Friday.

IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark reported that the number of consumers using mobile devices to visit retailer websites rose 28 per cent as against 18 per cent in 2011 while online sales on Thanksgiving 2012 were up 17.4 per cent over last year's Turkey Day. Online sales for Black Friday were up 20.7 per cent compared to last year. Research firm comScore put out an even higher estimate - that Friday's online sales were 26 per cent higher than Black Friday 2011, and that for the first time ever, the e-commerce totals for a Black Friday crossed $1 billion.

Analysts further add there would be more to come in terms of e-commerce, with Cyber Monday expected to easily trump Black Friday in terms of online sales. Though Cyber Monday goes back to only half-dozen or so years it is already established that the day comes with huge expectations both from shoppers and retailers. They add that consumers anticipated the kinds of 40 per cent off (if not better) deals that were on offer over the weekend.

The lower sales despite higher foot traffic may be due to shoppers being at stores to just 'showroom'' – checking out the merchandise in person before buying the goods online on CyberMonday according to analysts.