Web Shoppers Drive Black Friday Sales Up 11%
Holiday shoppers took to the Web on the day after Thanksgiving, ringing sales worth 11% more than last year’s Black Friday tally, according to comScore.
Mon, November 30, 2009
Network World — Holiday shoppers took to the Web on the day after Thanksgiving, ringing sales worth 11% more than last year’s Black Friday tally, according to new data from comScore.
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Black Friday saw $595 million in online sales, which is an 11% increase compared to Black Friday 2008, the firm reports. Plenty of retail buyers shopped online on the holiday, too, driving Thanksgiving Day sales to $318 million (a 10% gain over last year’s $288 million).
“Black Friday, better known as a shopping bonanza in brick-and-mortar retail stores, is increasingly becoming one of the landmark days in the online holiday shopping world,” said Gian Fulgoni, comScore’s chairman, in a statement.
Overall, $10.57 billion has been spent online during the first 27 days of the retail holiday season, marking a 3% increase compared to the corresponding days last year.
But Fulgoni cautioned against reading too much into these early numbers. “While this acceleration in spending suggests the online holiday season may be shaping up slightly more optimistically than anticipated, it may also reflect the heavy discounting and creative promotions being put forth by retailers that now encompass the use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter,” Fulgoni said. “Cyber Monday – the traditional kick-off to the online holiday shopping season – and the subsequent weeks will be the real test for how online retailers fare this season.”
The most visited retail property on Black Friday was Amazon.com, which logged a 28% increase in the number of unique visitors compared to last year. Rounding out the top five most visited properties are: Walmart (22% growth), Apple (up 39%), Target (up 2%) and Best Buy (up 24%).
“Much attention has focused on Amazon and Walmart this season, and both retailers performed particularly well online on Black Friday in terms of attracting visitors,” Fulgoni said.
Data from comScore also showed the increasingly popularity of sites dedicated to finding the best Black Friday deals. Between Nov. 23-27, BFads.net attracted the most traffic with 9 million unique visitors (a gain of 4% compared to the corresponding days last year). BlackFriday.info followed with 3.5 million visitors, while Black-Friday.net (up 136% to 2.3 million visitors) showed the fastest year-over-year growth, comScore reports.
