No, The End Is Not Near For Brick-And-Mortar Retail
NOVEMBER 28, 2016 | BY ERIKA MORPHY | GlobeSt.com
WASHINGTON, DC–The problem isn’t that online sales are rocking the Thanksgiving Day holiday weekend but underperforming properties and retailers.
Never before has the divide between online retail and brick-and-mortar retail sales been as stark as it has this holiday season. Adobe reported that more than $5 billion, or $5.27 billion to be exact, was spent online by the end of Black Friday, a 17.7% increase year-over-year.
In fact Black Friday sales surpassed the three-billion-dollar mark for the first time at $3.34 billion, for a 21.6% growth YoY, while Thanksgiving accounted for the remaining $1.93 billion. In another record first. Black Friday became the first day in retail history to drive over one billion dollars in mobile revenue at $1.2 billion, a 33% growth YoY.
“Shoppers hit the buy button at unprecedented levels as conversion rates were up nearly a full percent across all devices in the evening hours on Black Friday,” said Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst and director, Adobe Digital Insights in a prepared statement. “With the full day total coming in at $3.34 billion, Black Friday may have just dethroned Cyber Monday’s position as the largest online shopping day of the year.
I will cut straight to the chase. Yes, these number are good news for online retailers and yes, some of these sales were likely cannibalized from a physical store. But the inevitable hand-wringing that will start, probably after Cyber Monday’s sales are tallied up, over the fate of retail will be out of proportion to the problem.
