O’Reilly: We got some preliminary results as I understand it. How did things go?
Shen: Yeah so last week we talked about the run-up, history behind it, what some of the
expectations are, and honestly … O’Reilly: How iIt’s going to start on Fourth
of July in 10 years. Shen: Honestly things kind of came in the
way a lot of people expected them to with the emergence of the importance of the online
sales, how that’s becoming bigger and bigger component during this big weekend. But overall
sales from Thanksgiving and Black Friday actually fell 11% from last year …
O’Reilly: That's kind … Shen: … to $12.1 billion.
O’Reilly: That’s kind of big. Shen: This is according to data from ShopperTrak,
so foot traffic was generally down across the board and it was noted, I think by the
National Retail Federation that this was the first year that online shoppers actually outnumbered
those who ventured out. O’Reilly: It's cold out.
Shen: To the masses. O’Reilly: This is not surprising.
Shen: To the lines in stores. An interesting thing is, taking that one step further, it's
not just that online traffic – the importance is growing. But you know, we mentioned how
mobile had a really surprising turnout. Well a lot of people again this year were even
more surprised despite high expectations with 40%, with some 40% of that online shopping
taking place on smart phones. And I think another like 10 to 15% happening on tablets.
So that's just I think partially from smart phones are bigger, the screens are bigger,
it's easier to navigate and shop with them now. So their prominence and use among shoppers
is growing. And the thing is I think to keep in mind is that Thanksgiving, Black Friday,
Cyber Monday, we used to consider this stuff the beginning of the holiday shopping season.
It's more like half-time now. Because you know …
O’Reilly: Rush in the 3rd quarter, folks. Shen: … a lot of retailers begin their deals
as early as the very beginning of November. And as a result of that we've seen a decreased
importance in the specific days themselves. Black Friday, like I said, Thanksgiving, Black
Friday down. Cyber Monday though did see some positive results. The sales were at $3 billion,
up from last year continuing that growth in terms of the online piece of the pie overall.
And it’s just nice that we can recap on last week’s show.
O’Reilly: Yeah, no for sure. I can't believe more people didn’t think that you know,
just the advent of online shopping might not actually be the death knell of Black Friday.
Because the purpose of Black Friday is get people to come out, give them some deals,
make a name for yourself as a retailer for the holiday season. And I mean my wife, she
not only went to the mall just the Saturday before Thanksgiving and bought me some jeans,
but they had already started the pricing on the jeans for Black Friday. Not only that,
but they didn’t have my size in the store so they had it mailed to our house. Need I
say more? Shen: Well yeah, and even a lot of the retailers,
their online deals which a lot of people think, “Oh Cyber Monday is that day to do your
online.” You know, they started those at midnight on Thanksgiving. So everything’s
moving up, honestly all of that consumer spend is basically being spread out more and more
between November and December overall. And the one last thing I wanted to note too is
some of the hottest items from Cyber Monday included 4K TVs, iPads, the Xbox and PlayStation
4. So again this kind of highlights the fact …
O’Reilly: How’d you get my Christmas list? Shen: This again highlights the trend for
shoppers for their must-have items for the season to be electronics -- like the newest
electronic stuff. And I don't see that going away anytime soon.