Black Friday, the biggest US shopping “holiday,” began with expectations that lower gasoline prices and higher consumer confidence could mean better year-end retail sales than last year.
However, there was little sign of the buying fever of years past, after many retailers started Black Friday sales early, turning Thursday’s Thanksgiving Day holiday into what the industry has dubbed “Gray Thursday.”
“Gray Thursday is cannibalizing from Black Friday,” IHS Global Insight director of consumer economics Chris Christopher said in a phone interview, adding that he had heard that stores action was “relatively thin.”
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Many customers have already taken advantage of heavy discounts earlier this month to get their shopping out of the way, he said.
According to the research firm’s data, about 10 million fewer people are set to receive a paycheck on Black Friday compared with last year.
The median household income, adjusted for inflation, is about eight percent below its 2007 level, with most of the income growth seen by the top five percent of earners.
Big retail chains like Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Target Corp and Macy’s Inc opened their doors at 6pm on Thursday in hopes of boosting their weekend sales, even before many Americans had finished the traditional turkey holiday feast.
Walmart on Friday said that more than 22 million customers flocked to their stores on Thursday, the same as last year.
“Online shopping started while turkeys were still in the oven and yesterday was our second-highest online sales day ever — topped only by Cyber Monday last year,” said Laura Phillips, senior vice president of merchandising at Walmart, the world’s largest retailer.
Target said the Thanksgiving weekend got off to “a strong early start” with the discount chain for the first time offering special Black Friday deals on Wednesday.
Shoppers were snapping up TVs, headphones and other electronic goods. BestBuy Co’s Web site went down intermittently on Friday, with a message saying “We’re sorry. BestBuy.com is currently unavailable. Check back soon.”
The company explained that “a concentrated spike in mobile traffic triggered issues that led us to shut down BestBuy.com in order to take proactive measures to restore full performance.”
The National Retail Federation (NRF) forecasts more than 140.1 million shoppers for the Thanksgiving weekend from Thursday through today, slightly below last year’s expectations survey.
“We are encouraged by what we’ve seen thus far with eager Thanksgiving Day and early Black Friday shoppers,” NRF chief executive Matthew Shay said on Friday.
New vehicle sales were expected to rev up during Black Friday deals.
“Shoppers continue to return to the dealership as economic conditions remain favorable, with the unemployment rate at its lowest in six years and with consumer confidence nearing pre-recession levels,” Blue Book senior analyst Alec Gutierrez said.
In addition to the improving economy and healthy job gains, consumers might see more money in their pockets to spend as gasoline prices fall, mostly due to declining crude oil prices.
As of Monday, the average price at the pump was US$2.82 per gallon, US$0.47 lower than a year ago, “and the lowest price heading into a Thanksgiving holiday since 2009,” according to the US Department of Energy.
Christopher said that “even though consumer spending on gasoline is slightly less than three percent of disposable income, it plays a more significant role on consumer mood.”
Christopher forecast that this year’s holiday retail sales would increase 4.2 percent year-over-year, compared with 3.1 percent gains in both 2012 and last year.
He noted that last year’s holiday retail sales, at US$579.3 billion, were weighed down by the US Federal Government shutdown in October and an unusually cold December.
Consumer Reports said Americans’ “shop-’til-you-drop” Black Friday fever might be fading, after a report showed more than half of those polled said they would not be shopping at all.
Fifty-three percent of respondents said they did not plan to shop anytime during the five-day stretch between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday, the promoted online shopping day.
Among the 47 percent who plan to buy gifts, 38 percent said they would be doing so exclusively online compared with 30 percent who intend to shop strictly at stores.
“The change in shopping behavior from mall to mouse has a lot to do with convenience. People hate crowds. Men, in particular, are eschewing stores for the Internet,” Consumer Reports senior project editor Tod Marks said.
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