After shoppers gave retailers a somewhat encouraging start to the holiday shopping season, stores now turn their attention to the online promotions known as Cyber Monday and bringing back customers the rest of the season.
The good news is that holiday shopping held steady through the Thanksgiving weekend after retailers saw a huge crowd of bargain shoppers for early morning deals Friday.
But economic worries about jobs were still apparent as shoppers mostly stuck to their lists and focused on practical items for themselves and for their loved ones. The big worry is that consumers may not return until the final hours before Dec. 25.
According to preliminary figures released Saturday by ShopperTrak, a research firm that tracks more than 50,000 outlets, sales rose 0.5 percent to $10.66 billion Friday, compared with a year ago. That was on top of a 3 percent increase last year.
Online sales Thursday and Friday, however, rose 11 percent to $913 million, according to data released Sunday by comScore, an Internet research firm. Online business got a big boost as stores pushed online promotions the week leading into the Thanksgiving weekend.
The National Retail Federation trade group said Sunday it’s sticking to its forecast for holiday sales to decline 1 percent from last year.
A year after suffering the biggest sales decline in four decades, the nation’s merchants pulled out all the stops in stores and online to keep the momentum going for the holiday weekend, further blurring the lines between their Web-based and land-based businesses.
Major merchants including J.C. Penney Co. and Sears Holdings Corp. broke new ground by making many of their Black Friday specials available on their Web sites at the same time.
The heavy online push could steal some thunder from sales on Cyber Monday, the day when sellers unveil another raft of discounts online to lure shoppers looking in after returning to work.
Marketing gurus have started calling the season a “Twitter Christmas” as merchants have been tweeting deals and previewing discounts on Facebook pages.
Sears tweeted its bargains through the weekend, spokesman Tom Aiello noted Sunday.
“Forget Black Friday for bricks and Cyber Monday for clicks — this year it’s all about making it easy for customers to satisfy their shopping fix … wherever and whenever,” said John Long, a retail strategist at Kurt Salmon Associates.
Long, however, noted that “we’re still seeing cautious spending. The pie isn’t increasing whether you decide to buy in the stores or online.”
Laura Gurski, a partner in the retail practice at A.T. Kearney, a global management consultant, believes the weekend’s results offered signals that consumers, many of whom had cut spending all year to bare-bones necessities, had saved up for the holidays and were opening their wallets — even if just a little. Hard money training.
Tags: business, economic worries, holiday shopping, thanksgiving
