Retailers traditionally have looked to Black Friday, the day after
Thanksgiving, as the date when shoppers throng to stores and drive profits
into the black. But the ability to shop any time of the day or night online
may change that trend.
An increasing number of people are celebrating Black Friday online
instead of at the mall, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Visits to
e-commerce sites the day after Thanksgiving 2004 were up 11 percent over
last year, reported the Web audience measurement firm, which tracks activity
at 109 key retail and shopping sites across 10 categories.
Online spending for the holidays as a whole is on a growth trend,
according to VeriSign . VeriSign reported that the first
week of the prime holiday shopping season accounted for $2.2 billion of
online purchases, with a 21 percent increase in transaction volume over the
first week after Thanksgiving 2003.
At the same time, the average sale amount was $140, up $10 from the same
period 2003. The statistics are based on the analysis of online sales volume
processed through VeriSign Payment Services, which the company says accounts
for more than 35 percent of all North American e-commerce and represents in
excess of 120,000 online retailers.
VeriSign statistics show another interesting phenomenon: Monday retail
therapy.
“Throughout the year, we’ve seen Monday as the busiest shopping day
online,” said Healey. “Generally, Monday shopping online equals Saturday and
Sunday combined.” He thinks better bandwidth at work may be part of the
trend, along with shoppers pawing the merchandise at stores on the weekend,
and then going online to consummate the transaction.
Neither did the demands of family and friends seem to interfere with
acquisitive urges. Online shopping on Thanksgiving Day surged around 2 AM
EST, with a huge spike in the number of online transactions between 1 and 3
PM; the volume remained low and steady at around 3 percent for the rest of
the day.
Let’s hope these Web shoppers were not holed up in the bedroom, but
engaging in what Healey called “the new paradigm of multi stimulus in the
home — watching TV, reading and shopping online in the same room.”
Combine the increase in Thanksgiving Day shopping with the Black Monday
effect and the overall increase in e-commerce, and retailers may soon not
need to hold their collective breath on the day after Thanksgiving.
Overstock.com has experienced another shift in
consumer behavior. It reported that its sales for this holiday season peaked
on Thursday, December 16, a full week later than in previous years. In fact,
that date was the largest day in the company’s history.
President Patrick Byrne attributed the peak to his company’s promotion of
cheap, fast shipping in an attempt to lure last-minute buyers.
VeriSign’s Healey expects to see an e-commerce surge on the last day when
standard shipping will deliver packages by the 25th, and again on December
21, the last day to be sure priority shipping will make the date. On that
shop-and-ship-or-else day, he said, “We’ll see last minutes shoppers come
online in droves.”
