Delivery firms in the USA and Europe are gearing up for a flood of packages over the coming daysafter shoppers flocked online to snap up bargains in the last few days, including over the long
Thanksgiving Day weekend in the USA and during ‘Cyber Monday’ today.In the USA, online shopping on Thanksgiving Day (November 27) soared by 32% to just over $1billion while e-commerce on Black Friday – a public holiday that is traditionally used for earlyChristmas shopping – surged by 26% to more than $1.5 billion, according to digital measurementcompany comScore. This took total US desktop retail e-commerce spending for the first 28 daysof the November–December 2014 holiday season to $22.7 billion, which is 15% higher than the sameperiod last year, it said.
“Thanksgiving and Black Friday both saw exceptionally strong online growth rates as each daysurpassed $1 billion in desktop spending,” said comScore chairman emeritus Gian Fulgoni. “Thestrength we saw in the early online buying rush likely reflects a few things, including overallhealth in consumer spending, responsiveness to the strong deals being offered online, and perhapssome shoppers opting to stay home on Thanksgiving rather than head out to the stores that openedtheir doors early. Regardless of the particular drivers, it’s clear that the online holiday rush isgetting off to a very good start and is reason for optimism as we get into the heart of the buyingseason.”
The total number of US consumers out shopping at physical stores as well as online over the longThanksgiving weekend appeared to have dropped about 5% with expected spending down 6.4%, accordingto a survey for the National Retail Federation (NRF). Many Americans once again shopped onlinerather than in stores, though it seems early online promotions before the big weekend may havetaken some of consumer’s spending power with them, the NRF said.
According to the NRF survey the average person who shopped over the weekend spent $159.55online, roughly 42% of their total average budget, although this was down 10% from $177.67 lastyear. Most shoppers shopped online on Black Friday (46.7%), though 36.3% shopped online on Saturdayand as many as one quarter (26.2%) of holiday shoppers were online on Thanksgiving Day.
Meanwhile, in Europe, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are also increasingly establishingthemselves as important online shopping events, especially in the UK, according to Amazon andtechnology researchers Forrester Research.
Amazon UK announced that it had its busiest day ever on Black Friday (28th November) with morethan 5.5 million items sold. “Ever since we introduced Black Friday to the UK in 2010, sales haveincreased year on year but this year really has surpassed all of our expectations,” commentedXavier Garambois, Vice President of EU Retail at Amazon. “The public’s appetite for Black Fridayhas been bigger than ever, kicking off the Christmas shopping period in earnest and establishingBlack Friday as a fixture on the UK Christmas shopping calendar.”
Forrester Research pointed out that in the UK, retailers including Argos, John Lewis, and Veryall adopted Black Friday sales as well as large US-based retailers like Amazon and Apple. The USresearch company forecast that online retail sales in Europe during the holiday months of Novemberand December will generate €35 billion, representing 23% of total online retail sales for the year,thanks to factors such as shopping by mobile devices and more flexible delivery services.
At €12.6 billion and 25% of total online retail sales in 2014, the UK has the largestproportion of annual online retail sales falling during the holiday season, followed by Germany(€7.6 billion/21%) and France (€6.7 billion/22%), according to its new EU online holiday retailsales forecast 2014, which includes online, mobile, and tablet commerce across 17 Europeancountries.
