Overall, holiday shopping has started off strong, though increasingly, more purchases are being made online rather than in-store. The Thanksgiving holiday is a good indicator of how the rest of fourth quarter sales will proceed.
Some 39% of U.S. adults planned to shop over the Thanksgiving week, translating into 96 million adults, according to the Consumer Technology Association, which was recently called the Consumer Electronics Association.
CTA actually now looks at shopping for an entire week because retailers are releasing their Cyber Monday sales earlier — the Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving, said CTA senior economist Shawn DuBravac.
“Traffic patterns are shifting, driven by early promotion,” he told reporters on Sunday.
Comparison shopping was made easier by retailers releasing sale pricing earlier. Avoiding crowds, saving time and shopping outside store hours were top reasons consumers chose to make their purchases online, some 1,000 participants told CTA in a survey. The association was still tabulating information Sunday and did not release, for example, the percentage of online versus in-store shoppers. It had earlier predicted more than 70% would shop online during Thanksgiving week and 26% planning to shop today — Cyber Monday — a rise of 6% over last year.
CTA estimates 18% of all online purchases were made on a mobile device.
Some 57M adults, translating to 23%, shopped for tech during the week. On average, they spent $126 each on tech, according to CTA.
Smartphones comprised the largest sales category at 26%, followed by tablets at 19%. One in four bought a television during Thanksgiving week, or 18%.
Asked by RBR+TVBR how this figure compared to last year, DuBravac said it appears TV sales were slightly down, though CTA did see a shift to new products like Ultra HD, connected TVs and larger screens. (CTA was still calculating figures at press time.)
Notebook computers came in at 15% of tech purchases, followed by videogame consoles at 14%.
And there’s more to come. CTA says 14% of consumers say their holiday shopping is done, while 36% say it’s almost done and 11% have not begun.
