Chicago – Brick-and-mortar retail sales predictably tumbled
the week after Black Friday.
According to ShopperTrak, a market research firm that
monitors retail foot traffic, sales fell 22.5 percent for the week ending Dec.
3, compared with the prior seven days ending on Black Friday.
Sales were essentially flat year over year, edging up just
0.2 percent.
ShopperTrak said the sharp
decline is typical of the week after Thanksgiving, as shoppers often stay home
and shop online for Cyber Monday deals following an initial burst of Black Friday
activity. The effect was amplified this year by historic sales and traffic
totals on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
“After the ‘Black’ weekend promotions play out, shoppers
settle back,” ShopperTrak founder Bill Martin said. “They assess their holiday
shopping lists and budgets, and over the next few weeks they will head back to
stores in increasing numbers to finish shopping.”
Martin noted that Monday
through Wednesday for each of the first two weeks after Thanksgiving
historically have the lowest shopper traffic of the entire period between
Thanksgiving and Christmas.
To
help counter the post-Black Friday lull — as well as a controversial
Amazon.com
— Best Buy, among other retailers, is mounting a pre-Christmas
sales event this week. The online-only promotion runs Dec. 8-10, and includes such
deals as a 60-inch 1080p Zenith plasma TV for $900, a 22-inch Samsung 1080p LED
TV for $200, a 15.6-inch Samsung laptop with 4GB of memory and 320GB hard drive
for $350, plus an assortment of free-with-contract 4G smartphones, all with
free shipping.
