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  • Black Friday Retail Sales Rise Only Slightly, But Overall Data Encouraging

    ShopperTrak reports that sales at retail outlets increased 0.3% on Black Friday 2010 over Black Friday 2009. Not exactly a sharp increase--the increase from 2008 to 2009 was 0.5%. But when you take a look at other factors, there is a lot for retailers to like about holiday shopping so far: ShopperTrak's data shows early holiday sales and door buster promotions impacted Friday's performance as the company saw some unexpected strength in early November - as sales and traffic for the first two weeks of the month through Nov. 13 increased 6.1 and 6.2 percent respectively versus the same two week period in 2009. ShopperTrak founder Bill Martin says this early boost could impact retail performance beyond Black Friday and into the weeks leading into Super Saturday. "Retailers were very conscious of driving traffic early in November and in doing so some might have thinned Black Friday spending a bit," Mr. Martin said. "The reality is we have a deal driven consumer in 2010 and that consumer responded to some of the earliest deep discounts we've even seen for the holidays. Additionally, a percentage of retailers concentrated on pushing folks to their Websites with various online only sales which most likely influenced Black Friday performance as well." Martin continued: "That being said, we still saw a record amount of money spent on Friday so it's hard to say Black Friday wasn't a success, it's just not the success we saw in the mid 2000's when the day really became a phenomenon with the American public. And if retailers continue the pattern of early sales and online promotions, this could be the new norm in Black Friday performance." While sales were essentially flat, ShopperTrak reports total U.S. foot traffic increased 2.2 percent on Black Friday which points to a shopper driven by various sales and promotions. Read the full release here . Meanwhile, online shopping seems to be doing exceptionally well this year. EBay and PayPal report that sales doubled on Black Friday (see TechCrunch ). And Bloomberg is reporting that a big day today, Cyber Monday, could push online sales for Thanksgiving weekend over $1 billion for the first time .

  • Black Friday Stats and Consumer Confidence

    Black Friday is always a day ripe for hype and wide-though predictable-television coverage. But the last two Black Fridays seem to have attracted even more speculation, and anxiety, than usual. So it is impossible to resist looking at some of the numbers that are coming through today. The takeaway seems to be that there were more people shopping this Black Friday than last year, but they spent less. So the overall take by retailers was higher, but not by much. Andrea Chang shares some of the key stats in today's LA Times : Sales on the day after Thanksgiving rose just 0.5% to $10.66 billion, according to ShopperTrak RCT Corp., a research firm that monitors sales at more than 50,000 stores. That compared with a 3% year-over-year Black Friday increase in 2008 and an 8.3% surge in 2007. "It's a positive sign that we had an increase in sales, but the numbers certainly don't indicate that those will be sustained," said Britt Beemer, chairman of consumer behavior firm America's Research Group. Nationwide, 195 million shoppers visited stores and websites over the four-day weekend, up from 172 million last year, the National Retail Federation said Sunday. But average spending fell 7.9%, to $343.31 per person, from $372.57 a year ago. Total spending reached an estimated $41.2 billion. The resistance to making big purchases is no surprise to the folks at The Big Picture , where, before any Friday stats came out, David Rosenberg shared the below chart and stressed that consumer frugality is alive and well: Rosenberg writes: The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index may have improved (48.7 in October to 49.5 in November) and beaten consensus expectations, but it remains firmly in recession terrain. It is so obvious that consumers are tired of the over-borrowing and over-spending days of yesteryear. Despite all the temptations provided by the government, auto buying plans dropped to an eight-month low (from 4.7 in October to 4.4 in November); home buying plans slipped to a new 27-year low of 2.3 (from 2.5 in October and 3.0 in September); and intentions to buy a major appliance stayed at a 14-year low (23.2). Read Consumer Confidence in the Doldrums here .

  • Big Think Black Friday Special: 'The Science of Spending'

    Big Think has pulled together a baker's dozen of videos for Black Friday viewing. The videos cover our collective issues with spending and saving. The third video in the collection features Lee Eisenberg , author of the new book Shoptimism: Why the American Consumer Will Keep Buying No Matter What . Here is Eisenberg discussing the history of splurging: You can watch the full Science of Spending series here .