Black Friday Not So Gloomy?

Big shopping days bigger than expected

Given the state of the economy in days of late, retailers were expecting Black Friday in 2008 to be the wrong kind of black — gloomy, as opposed to profitable.

But according to the National Retail Federation’s 2008 Black Friday Weekend survey, conducted by BIGresearch, this wasn’t quite the case, as shoppers headed to stores and Web sites in droves over the weekend. According to the survey, more than 172 million shoppers visited stores and websites over Black Friday weekend, up from 147 million shoppers last year. Shoppers spent an average of $372.57 this weekend, up 7.2% over last year’s $347.55. Total spending reached an estimated $41.0 billion.

The good news continued on Cyber Monday, the biggest online shopping day of the year, with comScore, Inc. reporting that e-commerce spending on Cyber Monday totaled $846 million, up 15% from a year ago. For the four-day period from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, spending jumped 13 percent. According to comScore, between Nov. 1 and Dec. 1 – the first 31 days of the holiday shopping season – U.S. residents spent $12.03 billion in online retail sales.

That’s a drop of 2 percent compared with the corresponding period last year. But given the dire predictions many were making for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the news that it could have been much worse probably comes as welcome relief to retailers.

Black Friday proved to be an effective lead-in for Cyber Monday, with comScore reporting Black Friday online sales of $534 million, up 1% from a year ago, and ecommerce sales of $288 million on November 27 (Thanksgiving Day), up 6 percent from last year.

One reason for the huge turnout is probably retailer preparation for a gloomy Black Friday and Cyber Monday, by offering unprecedented savings and discounts intended to lure prudent purchasers into stores and onto their computers. And while holiday sales aren’t expected to continue at this brisk a pace, the fact that so many shoppers turned out this weekend is most likely a good sign.

Of course it’s still hard to predict what will the final tally will be once the smoke clears this holiday season. But if Black Friday Cyber Monday sales are any indication, retailers may find more than coal in their stockings this year.

— Noah Belson, Content Quality Analyst

Photo courtesy of Flickr user The Consumerist.