Shoppers image via Wikimedia Commons
It’s been another record year for online retailers, with sales on Thanksgiving and Black Friday leaving many of them in the black with total sales of $4.5bn, a jump of 14pc on 2014.
While the fallout from Black Friday is typically one of shock and dismay at seeing videos of people stampeding into stores to grab a big screen TV from someone’s shopping trolley, equally shocking are the Black Friday statistics released after the event.
This year’s analysis of how people in the US went shopping mad comes from Adobe, which looked at the two days and found that on the Friday alone people spent $2.72bn, with the remaining $1.73bn spent on Thanksgiving.
Each of these figures is a record in its own right, with the evidence showing that more and more people are purchasing the day before Black Friday, with a 25pc year-on-year increase shown.
As for how people are buying, the report says, it appears that it offers a good insight into consumer trends, with shopping done through smartphones accounting for 22pc of total sales across the two days, marking a 70pc increase on 2014.
Mobile shopping up, tablet sales fall
Also, Apple CEO Tim Cook would be happy to know that iPhones and iPads drove the majority of mobile sales, being used for 67pc and 84pc of mobile purchases, respectively.
Tablets overall, however, are continuing to fall in the relevancy stakes, with just 15pc using one to purchase, a 2pc year-on-year decrease.
Unsurprisingly, the most sought-after products this year, and almost every year, were consumer electronics and home entertainment systems.
Adobe’s research has shown that on Black Friday, the most popular products were Samsung 4K TVs, the Apple iPad Air 2, the Microsoft Xbox One, the Apple iPad Mini and Sony’s PS4.
In the world of toys, meanwhile, Lego’s top brass will be rubbing their hands with glee as its products make up the majority of the top five, including Lego Dimensions, Lego Star Wars and Lego Friends.
Overall, however, Black Friday sales in physical stores saw a decline on 2014 by more than $1bn dollars as people avoided the scenes that have made the shopping day so iconic.
