After eating turkey on Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, buyers were expected to flock to stores in the United States in record numbers to snap up bargains. Black FridayBut today, which is the busiest shopping day of the year, saw only a few numbers at the shop doors as the weather cooled.
“Only about 20 people have come through the kiosks so far,” said Jimena Silva, an employee at Target in Raleigh, North Carolina, which saw heavy rain between 6 and 8 a.m. on Friday.
Silva, 23, added that the number of customers in the store was higher in previous seasons, but she expects more customers to come later on Friday.
Online hysterical sales
While a report showed that US shoppers’ spending on online purchases increased 3 percent on Thanksgiving Day this year, mobile phone purchases led the increase.
A report released by Adobe Analytics on Saturday said American shoppers spent a record $9.12 billion online on Black Friday, when consumers took advantage of deep discounts to counter the pressures of soaring inflation.
Adobe Analytics, the data arm of Adobe Inc, said online spending rose 2.3 percent on Black Friday, thanks to consumers who looked forward to deals on big product sales even though the sales began in early October.
Data: The number of Black Friday shoppers in Britain increased by 3.7%
Data from Sensormatic Solutions showed an increase in the number of Black Friday shoppers across the UK by 3.7 percent year-on-year.
The increase was led by high-street shops, where footfall, due to gatherings to watch soccer World Cup matches, rose 13.9 percent year-on-year, according to the data.
But the company said the number of shoppers on Black Friday was still down 21.3 percent from pre-COVID-19 levels.
Separate data from Barclaycard Payments showed that the volume of payments on Black Friday rose 3.2% compared to 2021.