Black Friday Off to a Fast Start Online
Black Friday e-commerce sales have tailed $640 million as of 10:00 a.m. on Black Friday, up an impressive 18.4 percent from the prior year. Mobile shopping is hitting record highs as well. However, brick-and-mortar stores are seeing a slow start to the unofficial start to the holiday shopping season. In talking to shoppers, it has become apparent that the in-store deals by retailers are bordering on terrible, causing people to go online to make their holiday purchases, according to Brian Sozzi of The Street.
Total Retail's Take: With retailers starting their holiday discounts earlier each year, the significance of Black Friday as the kick off to the holiday season has become somewhat diminished. Combine that with the fact that more and more consumers are opting to shop online from the comfort of their homes, or on the go with their phones, and it's not surprising that store traffic is disappointing early this Black Friday. We'll have to see how the rest of the day plays out, but at this point it looks like Black Friday is more of a digital than in-store event.
