Online Shopping Hikes, Traditional Retailers See Drop This Thanksgiving

This year the shopping data reveals a different shift. The Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales boomed online and slashed down for traditional retailers in America.

Adobe Systems Inc. said about 18 percent growth has been seen in online spending on the two days to $5.27 billion compared to that of last year.

Adobe Digital Insights director Tamara Gaffney said even on Saturday morning people continued shopping online.

Meanwhile, data from in-store analytics firm RetailNext reveals traditional stores have seen a drop of about 11 percent on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

RetailNext spokesman Ray Harjen said more Americans are considering shopping from one’s couch rather than to go out and buy the best deal through malls.

Even though the traditional retailers are putting all the good efforts in deep promotions, having friendly staff and shelving exclusive products, but still consumers are shifting towards e-commerce.

Meanwhile, Amazon Inc. online retail giant said sales from mobile phones exceeded this Thanksgiving and Black Friday compared to the same period in 2015. The orders were higher and much stronger and before the day was done about three million toys were sold.

About 55 percent of the website traffic came from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. It is evident the use of smartphones has grown several folds and the devices are easier to implement online shopping, from anywhere and at anytime.

It is now time to see whether the traditional retailers would take the route of online stores or change their promotional strategies.