Retail sales were stronger than expected over the Thanksgiving holiday as shoppers crammed early-morning sales and hit their computers to shop online.
Retailers are hoping that online shopping today, known as Cyber Monday, will be just as brisk. The National Retail Federation estimates that 72 million consumers plan to shop online from home or at work today, up 18 percent from last year.
But the early positive trend may not hold for the entire Christmas retail season, analysts say.
“It won’t necessarily carry though,” says Michael McNamara, vice president of MasterCard’s Spending Pulse report. “Once we get past this weekend, we’ll see the longer term economic story – the worries about higher gas prices and a slowing economy – start to affect consumers.”
MasterCard expects retail sales to grow 3.5 percent to 4 percent for the season, versus a 6 percent increase in 2006.
Retail sales rose 8.3 percent on “Black Friday” this year compared with 2006, according to ShopperTrak, a retail analysis firm. And online sales jumped 61 percent at shopping.com.
The number of shoppers viewing online ads on Black Friday, so-called because it’s the day retailers hope sends them into the black for the year, rose 71 percent to a 118.5 million page views, ShopLocal says. So many shoppers visited Sears.com on Friday that the site had outages off and on for hours.
“It exceeded our expectations,” says Jim Griffith, spokesman for eBay, which owns shopping.com and PayPal. “Online shopping is now a component of every shopper’s strategy.”
Even without offering rock-bottom prices as many retailers did, the FAO Schwarz toy store in Manhattan had double the customers on Thanksgiving Day as it did last year, CEO Ed Schmults says. Sales were up 33 percent.
But the National Retail Federation has predicted that retail sales will grow 4 percent, the slowest gain since 2002. Consumer concerns about higher gasoline prices, a volatile stock market and declining home values are expected to put a damper on spending this year.
“We won’t be surprised when (sales) settle back into a more modest trend,” McNamara says.
So-called Cyber Monday isn’t the biggest online shopping day of the year; that’s the second Monday in December, according to eBay. “We call it Green Monday,” Griffith says.
But retailers unveil a lot of one-day sales on Cyber Monday to bring consumers to their Web sites, says Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org. “Online retailers consider Cyber Monday a virtual Black Friday and will be offering promotions that will be tough to beat later in the holiday season.”
