You've heard the numbers in aggregate for Black Friday weekend, but what about the month of November in general? Or Black Friday itself? Just how does this year stack up against the same period of time last year, especially given the lowered sales expectations and overall retail optimism as of late?
Here's a spoiler: Online retailers don't have anything to worry about so far.
"Despite some analysts' predictions that the flurry of brick-and-mortar retailers opening their doors early for Black Friday would pull dollars from online retail, we still saw a banner day for e-commerce with more than $800 million in spending," said comScore chairman, Gian Fulgoni, in a statement. "With brick-and-mortar retail also reporting strong gains on Black Friday, it's clear that the heavy promotional activity had a positive impact on both channels."
According to comScore's figures, online shopping is up 15 percent between November 1–25, 2011 versus the same time period last year. That's an increase from approximately $11 billion in spending to $12.7 billion, helped out in part by an 18-percent increase for online spending on Thanksgiving Day and a 26-percent increase in online spending on Black Friday itself.
Online spending on Thanksgiving Day, says comScore, jumped from $407 million in 2010 to $479 million in 2011, and Black Friday spending – the biggest online shopping day of 2011 thus far – jumped from $648 million to $816 million.
Approximately 50 million U.S. visitors shopped online on this year's Black Friday, an increase of 35 percent compared to last year's figures. And Amazon, once again, took top honors as the most-shopped online retailer on Black Friday itself.
"Each of the top online retailers generated significantly greater Black Friday activity compared to last year," said Fulgoni, in a statement. "Amazon.com once again led the pack, with 50 percent more visitors than any other retailer, while also showing the highest growth rate versus last year. However, it is telling that the top multi-channel retailers also showed strong growth in visitors, demonstrating the importance of the online channel to the retail industry as a whole."
And what about Cyber Monday? According to Fulgoni, Cyber Monday 2010 was the year's biggest for online spending at more than $1 billion in total sales, and he expects this year's Cyber Monday shopping to shoot even higher.