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
m-commerce promotion — Best
Buy, among other retailers, mounted a
pre-Christmas sales event earlier this
month. The online-only promotion ran
Dec. 8-10, and included 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.
