An online spending spree by shoppers is continuing on Cyber Monday, after sales on Black Friday grew by more than expected, underlining the online shopping revolution in the UK.
Initial estimates show that online spending on Black Friday was ahead of forecasts, growing by more than a third.
Sales on Black Friday grew by 36% compared with last year to £1.1bn, according to Experian and IMRG, making it the biggest day of online shopping ever. Amazon, the world’s biggest online retailer, said it sold more than 7.4m items on Black Friday in the UK, up from 5.5m last year.
Another £943m is expected to be spent today, up 31%, on a day that has been nicknamed Cyber Monday.
The first Monday of December used to be the biggest online shopping day of the year as families bought Christmas presents. However, it was overtaken for the first time last year by Black Friday as shoppers snapped up bargains and then waited until nearer Christmas to make further purchases.
Related: Cyber Monday – get the best deals and know your online shopping rights
There are fears that Black Friday was a damp squib for retailers on the high street, with only a limited number of people queueing for bargains compared with the chaotic scenes of last year.
However, the sales figures suggest that consumers focused on grabbing bargains online instead, and that retailers have spread their promotions across the weekend, or even a week.
Andy Mulcahy, of IMRG, the trade body for online retailers, said: “Black Friday appeared to be in a state of transition this year, as many retailers extended their campaigns to run over a week or even longer to ease the pressure on their operations.
“Nevertheless, it seems there is still a perception that the day itself is the time to get the best deals as it drew record volumes to retail sites - most likely boosted by shoppers who stayed away from the high street in order to avoid a repeat of the scenes from last year.
“Having so many different ways to browse and shop on retail sites will have played a part as well, with £495m being spent on smartphones and tablets on Black Friday.”
The winners and losers of Black Friday will not emerge until January, when retailers publish their trading updates for the Christmas period.
However, analysts at Barclays said Dixons Carphone, Argos, Asos and Zara led the way in terms of the discounts they offered.
Christodoulos Chaviaras, analyst at Barclays, said he expected footfall on the high street was down “materially” and also accused retailers of exaggerating their discounts.
“Three new attributes of this year’s Black Friday were: retailers paced themselves more with their promotional stance; their infrastructure, especially IT, was better prepared than last year; and customers increasingly preferred online shopping from the comfort of home this year.
“We would expect footfall in stores to be down materially, as much as 5%, but online sales growth should more than offset the drop in store traffic. Prices did come down week on week, but in many cases we noticed that the deals advertised compared the new price to a very old price, hence exaggerating the discount [percentage] advertised. This could be an indication of retailers being more margin conscious this year.
“Website crashes were far less [frequent] this year, which we believe is owed to retailers increasing the capacity of their IT platforms.”
0 nhận xét:
Đăng nhận xét