November 28, 2011

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Black Friday online sales in the United States are up by over by 26 percent compared to last year. Overall, eCommerce sites closed more than $815.8 million worth of sales on Friday, compared to just $648 million last year.

"Despite some eCommerce analysts’ predictions that the flurry of brick-and-mortar retailers opening their doors early for Black Friday would take some money away from online retail sales, we still witnessed a great day for online sales with more than $800 million in spending in the U.S.,” said comScore chairman, Gian Fulgoni.

"With traditional retail store sales also reporting strong gains on Nov. 25, it’s clear that the heavy promotional activity had a positive impact on both channels as well," he added.

By a wide margin, Amazon led the etailers, with 50 percent more bargain-hunters than any other website, followed by Walmart, Best Buy, Target and then Apple.

In total, a little over 50 million Americans went shopping online on Black Friday. That number is up 35 percent from last year's levels.

Black Friday is the traditional kick-off to the Christmas and holiday season shopping in the U.S. As the day after Thanksgiving, people are frequently off work and retailers also lay on a load of great bargains and more discounts, making it one of the busiest shopping day of the year.

And the discount-mad consumers are sometimes as bit too intent on bagging their bargains, resulting in extra police and security guards that need to be on duty.

And there's been a few incidents. One of these was late on Thanksgiving Day, when around 20 customers walked away with minor injuries after being pepper-sprayed by a woman looking for that killer edge in the race for discounted Microsoft's X-Boxes.

As the crowd ripped at each other in their eagerness to get to the games, she thought she was about to be robbed, prompting her to reach for the pepper spray.

A range of other scuffles and fights broke out among fevered bargain-hunters, but there were more serious incidents as well.

One man was shot in the early hours of Black Friday outside a Walmart in California after he and his family refused to hand over their purchases to two armed men. The man was reported in critical but stable condition by USA Today.

And then a grandfather was roughed up by police in a Walmart in Phoenix when he put a video game in the waistband of his trousers so he could lift his grandson out of the way of the crowd. Witnesses said police thought the 54-year-old was trying to steal the game.

Finally, a teenager in Michigan had minor injuries after he was knocked over and trampled on in a rush to the electronics department.

Black Friday is the major shopping event in the traditional brick-and-mortar segment, but online shopping also has today, so-called Cyber Monday, which comScore is predicting big things for as well.

"In 2010, Cyber Monday was the busiest day of online spending ever, with sales exceeding $1 billion, and we fully expect to see another record set this year," Fulgoni predicted.

Source: comScore.

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