Americans are back to doing what we do best these days: shopping. ComScore has released its first report on U.S. online holiday spending and it’s up significantly compared to last year, with Amazon.com leading the flurry of growth. Online sales from Nov. 1-26 increased 13 percent, rising from $10.3 billion to $11.6 billion. Thanksgiving Day, a traditionally slow day for sales, made a dramatic gain of 28 percent, and Black Friday sales rose 9 percent.
“Although Black Friday is known for the flurry of activity occurring in brick-and-mortar retail stores, online shopping is increasingly becoming the refuge of those preferring to avoid the crowds and long lines,” said comScore chairman, Gian Fulgoni. “The $648 million in online spending this Black Friday represents the heaviest online spending day of the season-to-date and a solid increase over last year’s Black Friday. Interestingly, we are also seeing consumers beginning to buy online in a more meaningful way on Thanksgiving Day, which has historically seen low buying activity.”
Amazon is the champ
When it comes to the big boys, Amazon is reigning supreme. The online retailer increased its traffic by 25 percent, making it the most visited store on Black Friday. With deals like $0.01 Droid phones, it’s not hard to understand why.
Walmart came in second place with a disappointing 1 percent decline in traffic. However, our trip to a brick-and-mortar Walmart store at midnight on Black Friday told a different story. Though the retailer did not mobilize online sales like Amazon, its in-store deals went unmatched. A tornado of shopping cart lines circled the entire superstore in the early morning hours, leaving little room for weary travelers to mount an escape from the late night masses.
Target and Best Buy online stores ranked third and fourth, up 9 and 1 percent, respectively. All four online stores posted more than four million visitors on Black Friday alone.
Finally, coupon sites performed decently, with BlackFriday.info picking up the top spot (630,000 visitors), followed by CouponCabin.com (543,000), RetailMeNot.com (332,000), and Groupon.com (332,000). All together, coupon sites grew 4 percent compared to last year. Black Friday sites increased 16 percent (7.4 million).
Did you visit Amazon this year? What’s your Black Friday routine?
