Coverage: Shoppers shift online for Black Friday

Fighting it out for a new television is the new normal for Black Friday shoppers, but with the rise of online shopping, Black Friday is becoming a bit more civil. Now customers are saving big by sitting at home, with retailers pushing more deals online.

On Black Friday, customers were estimated to have spent $2.7 billion online, jumping 14 percent year over year, according to Adobe Systems Inc., which tracks shoppers across 4,500 U.S. sites.

Hadley Malcolm of USA Today wrote this about the shift in consumer behavior:

Many shoppers said “no, thanks” to wild crowds over the holiday weekend as more people opted to shop online than in stores, initial data show.

As retailers seamlessly transitioned from Black Friday deals to Cyber Monday deals as early as Saturday, they were riding the tailwind of a shopping weekend that found more than 103 million people say they had or planned to shop online Thursday through Sunday, according to the National Retail Federation’s consumer sentiment survey of 4,281 people out Sunday. That’s compared to nearly 102 million people who shopped in stores during the four-day period.

NRF changed its survey methodology this year to account for shifts in online and mobile shopper behavior and most of the results are not comparable to previous years.

The preference for online deals is an encouraging sign for retailers as they roll out another round of online-specific sales heading into December. Although as the shopping season becomes more prolonged, fewer people are expected to shop online on Monday itself compared with last year, 121.3 million vs. 126.9 million in 2014, NRF says.

Nathan Layne of Reuters explained how the survey’s change in methodology presented a confusing twist for analysts:

By changing its survey methodology, the NRF threw a curve ball for analysts and media that closely watch its spending numbers for the Thanksgiving weekend.

The NRF said that its survey of 4,281 consumers, conducted on Nov. 27 and Nov. 28 by research firm Prosper Insights & Analytics, showed that shoppers on average spent about $300 over the four-day weekend through Sunday. The NRF said that is not comparable to last year’s figure of $381 due to changes in methodology. It found 151 million people would shop in stores and online over the weekend, beating its own forecast from a few weeks ago by some 11 percent. Almost equal numbers of shoppers visited physical stores and shopped online, it said.

Prosper Principal Analyst Pam Goodfellow noted that the question on spending in the new survey offered suggestions on what types of products it wanted feedback on like home decor and apparel, reducing the possibility that shoppers would include spending on food in their answers.

The new survey also specifies it is asking about the Thanksgiving weekend, while the previous poll does not appear to have been as clear, said Ramesh Swamy, a long-time retail analyst and executive vice president of retailer Curacao.

“It is important that the methodology for the 2015 survey has changed dramatically,” Goodfellow said. “It’s like comparing this year’s apple to last year’s orange. You just can’t do it.”

The change in methodology came after the survey fell under scrutiny in recent years, including last year when it showed average spending had dropped 6.4 percent and total spending over the weekend slid 11 percent to $50.9 billion, sparking worries about spending that proved largely unfounded as retail sales over the season rose 4.1 percent.

Javier David of CNBC described how the mania associated with Black Friday might have deterred customers from hitting the stores:

Evidence is mounting that consumers are gravitating toward mobile to avoid what retail tracking firm ShopperTrak noted was a “social stigma” associated with Black Friday. Meanwhile, a growing number of retailers are offering deals in advance of Thanksgiving, and shoppers are taking advantage of those—thus depriving the two day shopping extravaganza of some of its importance.

On Saturday, ShopperTrak’s preliminary figures estimated combined retail sales of $12.1 billion over Thanksgiving and Black Friday, a projected decrease from the comparable year-ago period. The firm added that Thanksgiving Day grossed just shy of $2 billion, while Black Friday pulled in more than $10 billion.

Separately, data from analytics firm RetailNext showed overall sales for both days fell 1.5 percent as customer traffic flattened, pushing down average spending per shopper by 1.4 percent.

Sarah Nassauer of The Wall Street Journal explained how stores are trying to adjust to customers’ shift in shopping practices:

At the same time, the Thanksgiving shopping ritual appears to be losing steam overall, blending into a longer holiday season that starts before Halloween and extends up until the hours before Christmas for some shoppers. Americans spent an estimated $12.1 billion at traditional stores over Thanksgiving and Black Friday, a decline from last year, according to ShopperTrak, which uses cameras to measure shopping.

“We are done Christmas shopping. We bought online,” said Albert Calderon, a police officer pushing his two-year-old granddaughter in a cart through a Wal-Mart store in Maryland on Friday. “Today we are shopping for fun,” said his wife, Susan. The couple saw the relatively empty Wal-Mart parking lot and decided to go in, Mr. Calderon said.

The shifting landscape means retailers that rely mostly on selling from physical stores face fundamental changes with how holiday shopping will play out in the coming weeks and future years, say retail executives and consultants.

Big chains are trying to adjust. For the first time, Wal-Mart put the majority of its door-buster deals online, hours before offering them in stores, and Target Corp. had employees shipping online orders from stores before doors opened on Thanksgiving. But despite heavy investments, online sales are still a small portion of sales for these retail chains. On Sunday, the retail federation estimated that more than 103 million people shopped online over the Thanksgiving weekend and nearly 102 million shopped in stores, based on its survey of 4,200 shoppers.