Black Friday and Thanksgiving online sales in the US surged to record highs as shoppers bagged deep discounts and bought more on their mobile devices, heralding a promising start to the key holiday season, retail analytics firms said.
US retailers raked in a record US$7.9 billion in online sales on Black Friday and Thanksgiving, up 17.9 percent from a year ago, said Adobe Analytics, which measures transactions at the largest 100 US online retailers, on Saturday.
Adobe said Cyber Monday is expected to drive US$6.6 billion in Internet sales, which would make it the largest US online shopping day in history.
Photo: Reuters
PREPARATION
In the run-up to the holiday weekend, traditional retailers invested heavily in improving their Web sites and bulking up delivery options, preempting a decline in visits to brick-and-mortar stores. Several chains tightened store inventories as well, to ward off any post-holiday liquidation that would weigh on profits.
TVs, laptops, toys and gaming consoles — particularly the PlayStation 4 — were among the most heavily discounted and the biggest sellers, retail analysts and consultants said.
Commerce marketing firm Criteo SA said 40 percent of Black Friday online purchases were made on mobile phones, up from 29 percent last year.
No brick-and-mortar sales data for Thanksgiving or Black Friday were immediately available, but Reuters reporters and industry analysts noted anecdotal signs of muted activity — fewer cars in mall parking lots, shoppers leaving stores without purchases in hand.
Stores offered heavy discounts, creative gimmicks and free gifts to draw bargain hunters out of their homes, but some shoppers said they were just browsing the merchandise, reserving their cash for Internet purchases.
There was little evidence of the delirious shopper frenzy customary of Black Fridays from past years.
However, retail research firm ShopperTrak RCT Corp said store traffic fell less than 1 percent on Black Friday, bucking industry predictions of a sharper decline.
“There has been a significant amount of debate surrounding the shifting importance of brick-and-mortar retail,” ShopperTrak senior director of advisory services Brian Field said. “The fact that shopper visits remained intact on Black Friday illustrates that physical retail is still highly relevant and when done right, it is profitable.”
The National Retail Federation, which had predicted strong holiday sales helped by rising consumer confidence, said on Friday that fair weather across much of the nation had also helped draw shoppers into stores.
The federation, whose overall industry sales data are closely watched each year, is scheduled to release Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales numbers today.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
RSS