According to Black Friday stats, here’s the verdict…
New York Post reports shoppers returned to stores on Black Friday with a strong increase in brick-and-mortar traffic along with record online shopping. In-store shopping increased by 2.9% while visits to stores on Thanksgiving jumped 19.7% from last year. The up-tick in physical store visits on Black Friday is a good indicator to predict how the holiday season shopping will go. New York Post said that the National Retail Federation (NRF) is expecting holiday sales during November and December to grow between 6% and 8% to between $942.6 billion to $960.4 billion.
Notable figures:
- Nearly half (48%) of online sales this Black Friday came from smartphone purchases
- Major drivers for the increase include electronics, toys and exercise equipment according to Adobe Analytics
- Buy now pay later popularity drastically increased
noHold’s Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based Virtual Assistants were live during the holidays, ready to help in-store as well as online. Here is a snapshot from a consumer electronics vendor offering the Virtual Assistant via QR code on product packaging across 7,000 retail locations. In November, the interactions jumped during the week before Thanksgiving. We noted a drop in usage on Thanksgiving Day then a spike on Black Friday. The Virtual Assistant conversations calmed down a bit over the weekend after the holiday and then another large spike Tuesday, November 29th. Monday, November 28th (a.k.a Cyber Monday) shows a decrease in physical store scans because consumers are on the lookout for those Cyber Monday deals instead of in-store shopping.
What’s your take? Will in-store holiday shopping continue to spike? Is visiting a brick-and-mortar on your shopping list?