Traditionally, Holiday Sales are said to kick off on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, in the US. However, in the past few years, Thanksgiving Day itself – earlier a day for family festivities – too has been seeing quite a bit of churn on the retail front. Analysts and market watchers gather data for the Thanksgiving weekend which ends with Cyber Monday, beginning with the Thursday festival.

However, trends can be discerned early. This year, the excitement is palpable as Black Friday sales are said to have broken records on many fronts.

According to a report by CNN Business, “Real-time figures from Mastercard projected that overall sales totaled US$ 23 billion on Black Friday alone. That's up about 9% from the day after Thanksgiving last year.”

Mastercard estimates that the sales for the holiday season, from November 1 through Christmas Eve, will grow by 5% over holiday sales in the same period of 2017.

"We've gotten off to a very good start," Steve Sadove, Mastercard senior advisor, was quoted by CNN as saying. "Both online and in-store sales are both tracking very well."

According to eMarketer, a market research firm, consumer spending this season is set to surpass US$ 1 trillion, a feat not achieved before.

Meanwhile studies suggest that online sales have seen a huge jump this year.

An Adobe/CNET report said that online sales on Black Friday at US$ 6.22 billion were 23.6% higher than last year. Adobe’s study found that 33.5% of online sales on Black Friday 2018 came from mobile devices, compared with 29.1% on last year. And further, that more than US$ 2 billion worth of the online buying was done using phones.  

Incidentally, Adobe Analytics also found that online sales on Thanksgiving Day reached US$ 3.7 billion in the US, surpassing year's record spend of US$ 2.87 billion.   

Adobe’s projection for Cyber Monday sales are bound to bring cheer – an increase of 17.6 percent y-o-y to US$ 7.8 billion. 

Not all reports share the general enthusiasm however. There were some who pointed out that store traffic actually fell.

Andreia Cheng in an article appearing in Forbes said: “Brick-and-mortar’s traffic is still in the negative column. As Amazon and other retailers drive increased online sales and traffic, visits to physical stores, where the bulk of the industry’s sales is made, continued to slow. RetailNext, which measures store traffic and other data at more than 425 retail brands, said brick-and-mortar sales on Thanksgiving and Black Friday had dropped by as much as 7% while traffic was down 5% to 9% — at least the fourth straight year when both of those measures declined.”

ShopperTrak’s survey showed store visits declined 1% for the two-day period, including a 1.7% drop on Black Friday. This, the research firm said, is “consistent with data results over the last several years”.  According to ShopperTrak, which monitors in-store traffic, foot traffic declines of recent years are beginning to flatten out.

Further, Brian Field, Senior Director of Global Retail Consulting for ShopperTrak, said in a statement: "The fact that the ... shopper visits remained almost the same this year compared to the last three years proves that the notion of Black Friday not being popular anymore is a myth. Retailers are in for a successful holiday season.”

Other studies showed that those who did go the brick-and-mortar route, spent more per transaction as compared to last year.  RetailNext said that an estimated 151 million people visited a mall or a shopping center over the weekend, according to a survey by trade group International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC). Over the four-day Thanksgiving weekend, consumers visited an average of 11 stores, the ICSC survey found. Further, the survey also noted that omnichannel retailers – with both a store and online presence – accounted for 88% of spending on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. The survey showed that 27% of shoppers chose to order online and pick up their goods at the store. About two-thirds who   opted for a store pickup also made an additional in-store purchase.

"Black Friday will come very close to eclipsing last year's Cyber Monday in terms of online sales," said Adobe Digital Insights Director Taylor Schreiner in a press release. "As retailers invest in improving mobile experiences, consumers are clearly feeling more confident in buying higher-ticket items (from) their smartphones."

An earlier survey by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics – published on November 16, 2018 – had found that more than 164 million consumers planned to shop over the five days of this Thanksgiving weekend.

The survey had found that of those planning to shop during the long holiday weekend 21% (34 million) planned to shop on Thanksgiving Day. According to the survey results, Black Friday was expected to remain the busiest day with 71% (116 million) planning to shop that day. Forty-one% (67 million) were expected to shop on Small Business Saturday; and 78% of those say they will do so specifically to support small businesses. On Sunday, 20% (32 million) were expected to shop. The shopping weekend wrapped up on Cyber Monday, when 46% (75 million) were expected to make purchases.

 “While the long weekend always draws shoppers of all ages to take advantage of the irresistible deals and promotions that retailers are offering, we’re seeing a change in how the younger consumers see the weekend.” Prosper Insights Executive Vice President of Strategy Phil Rist said. “Compared to older generations, younger consumers under the age of 35 are more likely to be attracted by the social aspects of shopping over the weekend or by the fact that it is a family tradition.”

The results of the post-Thanksgiving Weekend Sales survey are expected to be released by NRF shortly.