One of my regular shopping destinations – Walmart – saw an above average number of shoppers that day, but nowhere near what they expected. As I mentioned in a previous post, I postponed making an early shopping trip to Walmart the morning of Black Friday because I didn’t want to fight the frenzied crowds as I picked up my victuals. Since I was off that day it almost made sense to make my usual Sunday morning shopping trip on Friday morning instead...until I remembered what day it was.
It wasn’t until I was out shopping today that I remembered I should ask about Black Friday. One of my friends (and a former neighbor) who works at Walmart told me it had been “uncharacteristically quiet” for a Black Friday. It was pretty much the same thing at some of the local outlet stores, at our local BJ’s (Berkley-Jensen’s) discount store, as well as a couple of others. The crowds usually seen out on Black Friday weren’t quite as large as usual.
Seeing a few YouTube reports and blog posts that reported similar shopper turnouts in some areas begs the question, “Is inflation and the recession the Biden Administration and WRBA say don’t exist affecting the willingness of consumers to open their wallets, wallets that don’t have nearly as much cash in them as there was in previous years?” From what I’ve seen the answer is a qualified “Yes”. Other reports say in-person purchases were up as compared to last year, but it must be remembered the previous couple of years we were still dealing with Covid.
Seeing the numbers for Cyber Monday’s sales, it looks like some portion of Black Friday in-person sales were shunted to online purchases, including those made on Cyber Monday even though the discounts weren’t as big as they have been in the past.
According to Adobe, shoppers spent a record $9.8 billion online Friday — marking a 7.5% jump from last year. Meanwhile, Salesforce, which also tracks online shopping, estimated that Black Friday online sales totaled $16.4 billion in the U.S. and $70.9 billion around the world. And Mastercard SpendingPulse, which tracks in-person and online spending across all payment forms, reported that overall Black Friday sales excluding automotive rose 2.5% from a year ago — a smaller but still notable jump compared to 2022’s double-digit growth.It will be interesting to see what the actual sales figure are once the feds are able to run the numbers.
According to the firm, online sales rose 8.5%, while in-store purchases were up just 1.1%. Those numbers are not adjusted for inflation, which means that real sales in-stores could have dipped due to high prices.
Other data showed Black Friday saw some increases in store traffic — with large crowds in stores nationwide feeling more similar to pre-pandemic days.
RetailNext, which measures real-time foot traffic in stores, reported that store traffic rose 2.1% on Friday. Sensormatic Solutions, which also tracks store traffic, saw a bigger increase — reporting a 4.6% jump in shopper visits on Black Friday compared to a year ago. That also marks a turnaround from an average decline in store traffic seen throughout 2023 to date, Sensormatic said.
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Retailers began offering holiday deals in October this year, continuing a trend that started during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been resurrected multiple times due to supply chain clogs or inflation woes. But many consumers waited to buy until Black Friday.
All I know is I won’t be spending as much on Christmas presents this year as money is tight and I have to keep my spending under control...so no Porsche Boxster for the WP Girlfriend (if I had one) unless it is one of the Hot Wheels models.