Starting from the end of November there comes a row of days in the United States bearing names which sound Delphic for the non-American world and which, nonetheless, play an important role in the U.S. retail trade having been put into practice by market pundits to drive sales and create shopping euphoria. Reading this article you will find out just how successful Black Friday and Cyber Monday were this year and what kind of sales they managed to generate.
First, let's define what means what. Black Friday is the Friday following the Thanksgiving Day, which traditionally falls on the fourth Thursday of November. Black Friday kicks off the Christmas sales season, which makes some experts view the day as a sort of "weather wisdom," which helps to gauge the willingness of Americans to loosen their purse strings in the process of shopping and predict sales growth in the run up to Christmas.
The etymology of Black Friday is various. Some believe that it dates back to the 1960s and hails from Philadelphia, where it was thus nicknamed due to huge traffic jams regularly occurred on this day, as all rushed to stores for their purchases. Others argue that it stems from the accounting practice since on that day companies usually saw their incomes sharply rise, which under the once-common accounting practices were reflected in their statements in black ink as opposed to losses for which red ink was usually used.
To prevent the buying fever flared up during Black Friday sales from subsiding, marketing wizards coined Cyber Monday to make the days-off after Black Friday smoothly flow into yet another sales round, this time providing the opportunity to make purchases from home - just sitting at the laptop. On the weekends between Black Friday and Cyber Monday brick-and-mortar stores do not see anything special happen (and market probes confirm lower sales), which is natural because once you try to take part in such a Friday, when the hunt for the best discounts is joined by a good quarter of the population in the country, you will need the subsequent days-off just to get your breath (I tried it out on myself). The founding fathers of Cyber Monday have taken this into account, and therefore the main focus of this thematic shopping is put on enticing consumers to use the Internet and mobile gadgetry to buy online.
According to the U.S. National Retail Federation (NRF), 226 million people were on a shopping spree during the weekend after Thanksgiving, which is up more than 6% compared with 212 million last year. Of these, 13.8% bought jewelry or accessories made of precious metals, Rapaport says. Although it is a slightly worse figure compared with the same period in 2010, higher consumer prices for jewelry goods (up about 10%) and generally increased customer traffic made it possible to reap larger sales receipts in this segment.
Among jewelry buyers the pace was set by young consumers between the ages of 18 and 34. Virtually every fifth customer of this age group bought some piece of jewelry, according to the NRF.
U.S. retail sales hit a record $52.4 billion over the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend, an increase of 16%, the National Retail Federation said cited by the Israel Diamond Industry portal. The NRF calculated that the average ticket reached $398.62 over the weekend (whereas in 2010 it was $365.34). About one-third of sales were closed online.
The Saturday and Sunday following Black Friday both showed modest success resulting in lower retail sales and foot traffic versus one year ago. The entire three shopping days produced a mere 1.9 percent increase in sales, according to ShopperTrak. Compared to last year, Black Saturday sales dropped 4 percent, and traffic counts declined 9.6 percent, while sales were slightly better on Black Sunday, dropping only 2 percent against 2010, but foot traffic for the day declined 8.7 percent versus last year, the National Jeweler said.
All this was followed by Cyber Monday which rescued the overall situation as in a real American blockbuster. According to the Wall Street Journal citing comScore, online sales on Cyber Monday rose to a record $1.25 billion, the heaviest online commerce day ever. It produced a 22% rise from last year's Cyber Monday, which saw online purchases totalling $1.03 billion.
The results of this Cyber Monday prove that Americans are turning more and more comfortable using notebooks, tablets and smart phones for a shopping stroll in the virtual reality.
Despite the apparent success of a long sales weekend on the occasion of the Thanksgiving Day, overall U.S. retail sales in November were much less prominent. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, cited by Reuters and other news agencies, retail sales in November was up just 0.2%, whereas they were expected to increase at least by 0.6%, at the level of October. This was the lowest growth rate over the past 5 months, so the beginning of Christmas shopping may hardly be called promising.
However, it’s too early to lose sleep over it. The most yielding period of Christmas sales is still ahead. Experts believe that retailer trade will reach its peak in the week immediately preceding Christmas. Such opinions were shared with Rough&Polished in the course of a survey among the jewelers in San Diego (CA) during Black Friday. So, it’s a short wait until we get the results of Christmas sales.
Olga Patseva, Editor in Chief of the American Bureau, Rough&Polished
