Black Friday Deals Could Be Getting Overshadowed By Big Thanksgiving Day Discounts
Shoppers may be opting to shop on Thanksgiving day instead of Black Friday, indicating a key shift in the holiday shopping habits of the American public. CNBC reports that Americans spent $3.7 billion on Thursday, which is about 30 percent more than they did on Thanksgiving last year.
Based on a report from Adobe Analytics, a significant percentage of that spending occurred via mobile phone. Americans used smartphones to spend $1 billion on Thursday, which is close to 10 percent more than last year.
Despite the impressive number of e-commerce sales, hordes of people showed up in front of brick-and-mortar stores to cash in on deals on Thursday evening, presumably thanks to big sales from retail giants like Macy’s, Target and Walmart. These stores also opened earlier, adding even more encouragement for shoppers to show up.
There were examples of retail chains welcoming in shoppers between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. ET and one of them offered free cookies and coffee to their customers.
With all of this shopping activity on Thanksgiving, does this mean that Black Friday is getting overshadowed by a holiday that used to be almost wholly associated with spending time with family over a turkey dinner?
According to CNBC, there are indications that the answer to that question is yes. There were reports that the traffic at the shopping centers was slow on Friday.
“Here at the mall, it has been remarkably slow, to be honest,” Kerri Sapp, senior manager of Deloitte said on Friday as she stood inside Lenox Square mall in Atlanta. She added that the crowds on Friday were a lot smaller than what those present at the “big-box stores” on Thanksgiving evening. She said that the biggest crowd were getting coffee at the Starbucks.
But CNN reports that Americans still spent about $23 billion on Black Friday.
Changes in American Christmas shopping habits are potentially facing an even more dramatic shift next year thanks to tariffs against Chinese goods introduced by President Donald Trump.
Black Friday sales could hit a record $23 billion https://t.co/JgwDGOE3oL pic.twitter.com/nzASVhPAQ3
— CNN (@CNN) November 23, 2018
As the Inquisitr previously reported, Trump introduced a 10 percent tariff on almost 6,000 types of Chinese goods and he’s threatened to increase that to 25 percent. Some of those products are consumer goods that make great Christmas gifts, like purses, wallets, and perfumes. Thanksgiving and Black Friday shoppers aren’t feeling the effects of the tariffs just yet because the items on shop floors these days were priced before the tariffs were implemented. But, if the trade dispute continues, holiday shopping deals could become scarce next year.
With President Trump and President Xi Jinping meeting next week at the G20 Summit, there’s hope that the trade war could be resolved. But given terse statements by both sides about trade, some experts are concerned about the future of Chinese-American economic relations.
