Just two days before, IBM Digital Analytic Benchmark reported that online retail sites’ visits through mobile devices rose by 10% on Black Friday 2012 compare to the same day of the last year. On the other side, social shopping showed off gloomy responses on the same day. According to a recent report from comScore, e-commerce spending recorded $1.042 billion figure on Black Friday, up 26% compared with the same day of the prior year. Indeed, this was the first time in the history of Black Friday when online spending surpassed $1 billion milestone.
For the holiday season (until November 25 this year), online spending reached to $13.7 billion, up 16% compare to corresponding days of the last year. On ‘Thanksgiving Day’ this year, consumers spending succeeded to manage $633 million, up 32% compared with the same day of the last year. Of course, e-commerce channel played crucial role on overall shopping in holiday season. The channel was preferred by those who didn’t like to shop in crowd especially in Bricks and mortal stores.
In terms of specific retailers, Amazon was the most popular e-commerce site by visits on Black Friday, followed by Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Apple. On the day, 57.3 million Americans visited online retails sites, up 18% compared to the same day of the prior year. Among top five visitors, Amazon reported highest year-over-year in terms of visitors growth rate.
In terms of product category growth, ‘Digital Content & Subscription’ was at the top with 29% Y/Y growth in holiday season until November 25 this year, followed by ‘Toys’ and ‘Consumers Packaged Goods’ with 27% and 23% respectively. On the other side, ‘Video Game Console & Accessories’ and  ‘Consumer Electronics’ each accounted 18% Y/Y growth in holiday season ending November 25 this year.
On Black Friday, eBay and GSI commerce recorded 153% and 198% Y/Y jump in mobile sales respectively in the U.S.. While on Thanksgiving day, eBay and PayPal demonstrated 133% and 173% Y/Y increase in mobile volume transactions. Moreover, designed-focused e-commerce site “Fab” showed off 300% Y/Y growth in mobile sales on Black Friday.
Indeed, biggest surge on Black Friday came from mobile consumers, accounting 16.3% of overall sales. In terms of online shopping, iPad dominated over other smartphones or Tablets on Black Friday; it accounted for 10% of online shopping, followed by iPhone at 8.7% and Android at 5.5%.
In terms of tablet traffic generation, iPad generated 88.3% of entire tablet traffic, followed by the Barnes & Noble Nook at 3.1%, Amazon Kindle Fire at 2.4% and Samsung Galaxy at 1.8%. However, propitiation of smartphone users accessed online shopping on Black Friday was greater than Tablet– 58% of consumers used smartphone compared to 41% those who used Tablets for shopping. Of course, the sales on ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Thanksgiving day’ grew up due to earlier promotions, mobile shopping and more personalized deals.
