Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales have hit historical highs, breaking the brick-and-mortar retail tradition. Instead, it has resulted in a surging online-exclusive revenue.
For retail chains, this drastic switch from in-store hurdling to online searching and purchasing has led to significantly less in-store traffic. The 2017 shopping year has illustrated the “sad” and “dead” mall concept, an idea that malls and retail stores have become vacant due to the superimposing virtual model.
Ken Perkins, President of Retail Metrics, explains that devices such as Amazon’s Alexa “cut retailer[s] out of the equation for consumers that are pressed for time.” Consumers are more than 50 percent likely to purchase a model that they have encountered in stores, online. The idea of “cutting retailers out of the equation” intensifies as online-exclusive sites update inventory and diversify their market portfolios.
Black Friday statistics exemplify the holiday transition into what analysts deem “Cyber Friday.” Online American shoppers spent a record of $7.9 billion in the 24-hour period. According to Adobe Insights market trackers, this is a 17.9 percent increase from last year’s $3.34 billion sales revenue.
This statistical breakthrough has renamed “Black Friday,” “Big Friday” of 2017. “Black Friday” is the title that recognizes the day in 1869 on which the stock market dropped a whopping 20 percent due to the drive-up of gold. Today’s “Big Friday” is a high hope for shoppers, both nationally and internationally.
Shoppers can find significant markdowns in-person and online. The shopping industry generates some of its highest earned revenue.
Although it may be advertised as the highest discounted day of the year, analysts argue that December 26th brings in spectacular day-after-Christmas sales that surpass those of the day-after-Thanksgiving.
Amazon is estimated to account for nearly half of all online sales throughout the post-Thanksgiving holiday. According to estimates released by GBH insights, Amazon’s five most ordered products include: the Amazon Echo Dot, the Fire Stick with Alexa voice remote, the TP-Link smart plug, and the Instant Pot. These products were heavily advertised by Amazon beginning in early October, showing the effectiveness of Amazon’s marketing component led by Neil Lindsay and Ariel Kelman.
Two days later, Cyber Monday online sales rose to $6.6 billion, a percentage increase nearly equivalent to that of Black Friday. Although Cyber Monday sales last until the end of November (36 hours longer than the typical Black Friday), Monday itself was classified as “the [single] biggest online shopping day of the year.”
As implied by Black Friday sales, Cyber Monday shoppers splurge exclusively online. Adobe Insights has released that smartphone shopping accounted for about $1.4 billion of CyberMonday sales. Tablet computer shopping brought in $600 million of the day’s revenue. This switch from desktop computers to handheld devices has revolutionized the technological shopping equation of 2017.
According to Apptopia, the most popular shopping application of CyberMonday was Wish, which garnered 48 percent more revenue than Amazon, its top contender.
Leading to this statistical high were the in-between days of Small Business Saturday and Sunday. In total, online sales clocked in at $5.12 billion. This is a 10 percent from 2016’s weekend numbers.
The holiday shopfest offers statistics of other sorts as well. The Federal Bureau of Investigation received 203,086 background check requests for gun purchases. This number is greater than the previous single-day high of last year: 185,713, a record which was also set on Black Friday. Although this statistic does not measure the number of actual gun purchases, it is the best available indicator of gun ownership rates in the United States.
The holiday season of 2017 is setting unbelievable records, leading a revolution of the American technological, social and security model.
