Millions of Americans left their Thanksgiving meals to hit stores across the country in an annual shopping ritual, but the crowds early Black Friday morning were thinner than years past at some malls and shopping districts.
Thinner crowds could spell problems for retailers, some of whom entered the holidays warning of uneven consumer demand and elevated levels of inventory. But the smaller crowds could also reflect deeper changes in how Americans shop: Increasingly, they are spending more online and making fewer visits to stores.
For the first time, Walmart made the majority of its Black Friday deals available online in the wee hours of Thanksgiving morning — some 15 hours before its stores opened.
Retailers have historically used deep discounts on a limited supply of big-ticket items to lure shoppers to their physical stores, thus the name “door-buster.” Instead of lining up outside stores for hours to get those deals, Walmart shoppers this year were able to purchase items such as a $125 Roku 32-inch TV from the comfort of their homes.
So many shoppers visited Walmart’s website when the door-busters went on sale early Thursday that the site was overloaded and some shoppers struggled to check out.
Analysts interpreted the move by Walmart and other maneuvers by Target and J.C. Penney as attempts to win shoppers back from , whose product discounts and shipping promotions are eating away at retail profits.
Shoppers didn’t wait for Black Friday to spend. E-commerce sales were up 51 percent by midday Thursday, compared with the same period a year ago, according to ChannelAdvisor, an e-commerce software company. ‘s sales rose 31 percent, eBay increased 11 percent and Google Shopping was up nearly 60 percent.
Adobe, which tracked transactions from 4,500 retail websites, estimated consumers will have spent $2.72 billion online Friday, after spending $1.73 billion on Thanksgiving.
U.S. online retail sales during the holiday season are expected to total $95.5 billion, an 11 percent increase over last year, according to Forrester. By contrast, the National Retail Federation expects total holiday retail sales, including in store and online, to grow 3.7 percent.
Heading into the weekend, the NRF predicted that 135.8 million people would shop over the Thanksgiving weekend, a slight increase over the 133.7 million who did so in 2014. Any growth would be a reversal from last year, when retail spending over the Thanksgiving weekend fell 11 percent.
