Well-prepped by retailers via ad circulars, emails and good old TV commercials, over half of U.S. consumers hit the stores this past weekend. According to the Black Friday weekend consumer survey conducted by BIGresearch for NRF, almost one-quarter shopped as early as Thanksgiving Day itself (that’s up 29.2% over Thanksgiving Day last year). An impressive preview, it turns out, of the approximately six out of ten consumers who flooded stores on Friday and Saturday. All in all, BIGresearch estimates that spending for the period (Thursday through Sunday) will total $52.4 billion, up 16% from the same period last year.
So, with four weeks to go before December 25, what does Black Friday weekend tell online retailers?
Economic worries notwithstanding, U.S. consumers appear – for now, at least – determined to have a good holiday this year.
- Of the estimated total $52.4 billion that we lavished on gifts (and ourselves) this weekend, 37.8% was spent directly online (a tidy $19.81 billion), up from 33.3% last year (or $14.98 billion).
- Online Black Friday weekend buyers spent an average of $470.79 on holiday shopping, or 18% more than the average for all shoppers this weekend. Of that, online Black Friday Weekend buyers spent $246.15 directly online. But in something of a surprise turn of events, men spent an average of $200 online, women spent closer to $100 online, showing how men like a bargain but may not want be in stores to nab those.
- Top of the shopping lists for online shoppers this weekend: clothing and accessories (65.2%, vs. 51.4% of all shoppers); books and media (55.4%, vs. 37% of all shoppers); consumer electronics and computer-related accessories (54.9%, vs. 39.4% of all shoppers); toys (46.8%, vs. 32.6% of all shoppers), and – of course! – gift cards (37.4%, vs. 23.1% of all shoppers).
However, consumers are still intent on finding value, and are actively doing the homework – and pavement pounding legwork – to find that.
- One-third of online Black Friday weekend buyers shopped on Thanksgiving Day, rising to almost three-quarters on Saturday. Of those who shopped on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), half got to the store by 6 a.m., with fully one-third arriving before or right around midnight.
- True to cross-channel shopper form, online Black Friday weekend buyers shopped in multiple venues, not only the web, including department stores (58.3%) and discount stores (43.8%) to specialty stores such as electronics (43%) and clothing and accessories (37.4%).
Retailers need to communicate the value that they offer clearly, repeatedly, and across all channels and marketing media to get consumers to make that purchase.
Online shopping is now firmly entrenched across three screens, requiring increased coordination between retail teams.
- As predicted, smartphones and tablet devices figured prominently in online Black Friday weekend buyer shopping. Over half of those who own a smartphone or a tablet device planned to use these to research products and compare prices, while 2 out of 5 planned to look up retailer information such as locations, hours, and the like. Not surprisingly, tablet device owners were somewhat more likely to purchase products via this device than were smartphone owners.
In the weeks ahead, retailers need to ensure that online shopping works flawlessly (and, I’d add, intuitively) across the web, smartphone and tablet device, as well as integrated with stores and catalog operations. That means not just from a technical standpoint, but also in terms of ongoing coordination between teams spanning marketing, merchandising, customer service, fulfillment and, of course, development.
Don’t let up on site monitoring and operations. When we asked retailers last year in our post-holiday survey, “Looking ahead, what ONE thing will you do differently for holiday 2011?” inventory management and site performance topped the list. In recent years, the first three Mondays following Thanksgiving are among the top online grossing days for the holiday season, so retailers need to be prepared for that onslaught of traffic and demand (this year, that’s Cyber Monday (November 28), along with December 5 and 12). Monitor the site vigilantly, prepare the fulfillment and customer service teams, and ensure that marketing isn’t planning to push a product or category that merchandising knows is selling through faster than anticipated.