For the first time since the internet's inception, Black Friday deals led online sales for the coveted shopping day surpass $1 billion. Eager bargain hunters spent an accumulative of $1.042 billion online the day after Thanksgiving, representing a 26 percent increase in spending online compared to last year's Black Friday.
According to figures released by market analyst ComScore, online shopping on Thanksgiving Day also increased by generating $633 million in receipts, which is a 32 percent increase over Thanksgiving, 2011.
"Despite the frenzy of media coverage surrounding the importance of Black Friday in the brick-and-mortar world, we continue to see this shopping day become more and more prominent in the e-commerce channel -- particularly among those who prefer to avoid crowds at the stores," ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said. "Coupled with early reports indicating that Black Friday sales in retail stores were down 1.8 percent, we can now confidently call it a multi-channel marketing phenomenon."
Apparel and accessories accounted for more than a quarter of all dollars spent online last Friday, consequently overtaking last year's number one seller, computer hardware. Tablets and smartphone sales also experienced an increase, as did sales of digital content and subscriptions, which boasts the largest sales growth with a 29 percent increase over last year.
57.3 million web users visited online retail sites on Friday, an 18 percent increase over the figure from 2011. Apart from auction sites including eBay, the most visited site was Amazon, with the world's largest online retailer followed by brick-and-mortar giants Walmart and Best Buy, while Target and Apple completed the top five.
Elsewhere, ComScore predicts record spending during Cyber Monday, which is the day when U.S. consumers are proven to continue their shopping in the office. The company's forecast surpasses the $1.25 billion spent online during 2011's Cyber Monday.
"With Thanksgiving now behind us and most consumers returning to work tomorrow, we can look forward with anticipation to Cyber Monday, which according to norms we've observed over the past three years should be the heaviest online shopping day of the season with sales approaching $1.5 billion or even higher," Fulgoni added.
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Online shopping for the first 23 days of November, meanwhile, resulted in $13.7 billion in sales, representing a 16 percent increase over the same period last year.
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ELMO_2006 It only makes sense, from the comfort of one's own home.Reply
Who really has the time to queue up for hours on end or get into fists-to-cuffs for that last toaster on sale!
Maybe to watch some woman lose her weave or the red-neck throwing up in the isle.... -
Imagine if the greedy companies always have those nice prices, imagine the amount of money they would make yearly.Reply
I always shop on-line cause the fact its always alot cheaper than going to local stores that rip you off to make up their losses. -
g00fysmiley i admit to buying tech parts on black friday, got a 3570k z77 gigabyte mobo, 16 gigs ram, a 128 gig ssd, a 1 tb hdd and a nzxt h20 cpu cooler for $550 shipped, soem preetty ddecent deals to upgrade an existing tower (keepign jsut the 750watt corsair psu and case replacing a amd phenom based machine... not phenomII the og phenom)Reply
black friday is great i know where all the crazy people are and how to avoid them, and thanks to online shopping i can still get good deals from the comfort of my couch
*edit z77 mobo not p77... p77 what would be the point of the 3570k* -
elbert Don't think online is perfect by any means. I found myself fuming over a limit bug on newegg's 2TB Seagate HD sale. It had a limited of 2 and I couldn't even buy one. Guess its why they had the HD up for sale the entire 4 days. Sent them no less than 2 message trying to get one and finally gave up after getting in on a lightning amazon deal for the same $69.99 price.Reply -
Totally un-related, but READ:Reply
http://semiaccurate.com/2012/11/26/intel-kills-off-the-desktop-pcs-go-with-it/
Tom's need's an "anonymous" contact form for submissions.
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internetlad people are still spending this much? I must be looking at the wrong sites because all the deals i've seen are crap.Reply
Only thing that tempts me at the moment is the free Droid RAZR (in "cranberry") from Verizon on a 2 year contract (i've been looking for a phone, the deal isn't great but it's good) and a Rosewill office chair for 40 bucks after 20 dollar rebate and 20 dollar savings with code.
Everything else has been the typical "raise the price around the holidays, then bring it back to what it was 6 months ago and call it a sale" crap. -
BoredErica I went to the stores in line to hang out with my friends. But as a bargain-grabbing exercise, it was futile.Reply -
punahou1 I regret wasting time on the NewEgg site. Every deal of interest to me was higher than Amazon's regular pricing. (This is because they really gouge for shipping to Hawaii). They say "free shipping" but when you check out a shipping charge mysteriously appears. $20 shipping for a micro sd card is outrageous...Reply -
retrophe JustPosting84Totally un-related, but READ:http://semiaccurate.com/2012/11/26 o-with-it/Tom's need's an "anonymous" contact form for submissions.Reply
Damn if that is true . . .
might be time to buy AMD stock -
drwho1 I got an SSD for a friend, 256GB OCZ SSD from Newegg = $160Reply
It was Thursday night.... I then checked the next morning at 5:AM est
and the SSD was already SOLD OUT!
Imagine if I had waited a bit for a better deal....
still waiting for UPS..... hope that everything works
***replacing his "aging" 128 SSD system drive for this one***