By Suzanne Kapner
The Thanksgiving shopping tradition has gotten ahead of the
holiday itself.
On Nov. 10, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. offered many holiday promotions
online or within its mobile app. J.C. Penney Co. sent its Black
Friday advertisements to users of its mobile app on Nov. 4, and
started those sales on Wednesday, a day earlier this year than last
year and one day ahead of the holiday itself.
Across the industry, retailers released advertisements of their
biggest deals three days sooner this year on average than last,
according to Market Track LLC, which analyzed emails, social media
and retail websites. And the volume of emails that retailers sent
to customers, who opted to receive them, increased 15% from October
through Nov. 19, compared with the same period a year earlier,
Market Track found.
The early start seems to have paid off. Shoppers spent $27.2
billion between Nov. 1 and Nov. 23, a 4.3% increase over a year ago
during that same time frame, according to Adobe Systems Inc., which
analyzed data from 21 billion visits to retail websites. Adobe
predicted that online spending on Thanksgiving Day will reach $2
billion, up 16% from a year ago.
In the battle for shoppers and in an effort to hold off advances
from online rivals such as Amazon.com Inc., traditional retailers
have been moving discounts earlier in the month, linking their
stores and websites more closely and finding ways to capitalize on
the rise in mobile shopping.
"Bricks-and-mortar stores are pulling out all the stops," said
Pete Madden, a director in the retail practice at consulting firm
AlixPartners. "They are making it clear they won't be beat on
price, service or products."
The Friday after Thanksgiving has long served as the kickoff to
the frenzied holiday shopping season. Although it is no longer the
busiest shopping day of the year, it remains vitally important to
retailers locked in a fierce battle for market share. This year,
shoppers are expected to spend $27 billion on the day, making it
the second-biggest U.S. shopping day of the year behind Super
Saturday, which falls the weekend before Christmas, according to
consulting firm Customer Growth Partners.
But Black Friday is no longer a one-day event; promotions are
increasingly spread throughout November, as traditional retailers
try to match more nimble online rivals.
Toys "R" Us Inc. made its Black Friday deals available to online
shoppers on Wednesday night, hours before stores open at 5 p.m. on
Thanksgiving. Kohl's Corp. for the first time made "door-buster"
deals normally reserved for in-store shoppers such as a $250
Samsung TV and a $130 Fitbit wristband available online, starting
at midnight Thursday, before stores open at 6 p.m. on Thursday.
Amazon started its deals on Nov. 1. The web giant is offering
new discounts every day, sometimes as often as every five minutes,
through Dec. 22. In preparation for the holidays, Amazon expanded
its product offerings by 30%, the equivalent of 3.6 million new
products, according to 360pi, a retail pricing and assortment
tracking firm.
The risk is that early spending will pull dollars forward from
later in the season. That pattern occurred over past Thanksgiving
weekends, as more stores opened on Thursday and siphoned sales away
from Friday. As a result, more retailers and malls will remain
closed on Thanksgiving this year, including Hhgregg Inc., Office
Depot Inc., the Mall of America and many malls owned by CBL &
Associates Properties Inc.
Analysts are banking on financially healthier consumers opening
their wallets now that wages are increasing and unemployment has
fallen. Nearly 63% of consumers say it would be easy to find a job
today, compared with 54% who said so a year ago, according to a
survey conducted by market research firm America's Research
Group.
The National Retail Federation forecasts total holiday shopping
will rise 3.6% to $655.8 billion from a year ago with 137.4 million
people shopping in stores and online during Thanksgiving weekend
alone.
In what some analysts have dubbed the "Trump Bump," they are
hopeful that President-elect Donald Trump will stimulate the
economy and lower taxes, which means "a large segment of the
population that was previously reluctant to spend," wrote Citi
analyst Paul Lejuez, in a research note, "now feels better."
For brick-and-mortar retailers, the challenge is to draw more
shoppers into their stores on what is a chaotic day marred by long
lines and crowded parking lots. Last year, more people shopped
online than in stores during the Thanksgiving weekend, according to
the NRF. This year, only 23% of Americans plan to shop in stores on
Black Friday, according to a survey conducted by Bankrate.com, a
financial-services company. (A survey conducted by a mall-industry
trade group offers an opposing view, that 81% of shoppers expect to
spend in brick-and-mortar stores during the holiday weekend.)
Wal-Mart is providing store maps to help customers find popular
items, and handing out wristbands for select items so shoppers
don't have to wait in line for Black Friday sales to begin. At
Kohl's, shoppers will be able to order Black Friday deals online
and pick them up in store -- ensuring the items are waiting for
them when they arrive.
--Sarah Nassauer and Paul Ziobro contributed to this
article.
Write to Suzanne Kapner at Suzanne.Kapner@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 24, 2016 17:09 ET (22:09 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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