Black Friday CE Sales Up, Some Lost to Pre-Thanksgiving Discounts

Black Friday weekend CE sales were up by high-single to low-double-digit percentages, despite a month’s worth of discounts that prompted some consumers to buy before the post-Thanksgiving sales blitz began, said retailers we polled.

The drum beat of daily deals began in late October and continued through the run-up to Black Friday, prompting some consumers to part with their money early, retailers said. But the doorbusters offered Black Friday and over the weekend offset sales lost to pre-Thanksgiving promotions, retailers said. The discounts spared no brands, though products from tier two and three brands like Coby, Westinghouse, Emerson, Sylvania and Apex emerged as the bargains du jour Black Friday at national and regional chains, retailers said.

"I think the pre-Thanksgiving promotions were more name brand, and the day of Black Friday” other brands took over, Nebraska Furniture Mart CE Merchandising Director Mark Shaw said. “If you look at the pure sales and there is a deal, you can take a consumer out of the market early” by offering pre-Thanksgiving discounts. “You may take them out of the market and they may not even buy something Black Friday weekend, but they are still comparing the ads and measuring the retailers,” he said.

Nebraska Furniture Mart posted increased sales in TVs, audio and PCs -- computers led by the addition of Apple’s iPad tablet PC, Shaw said. But videogames hardware lagged, largely from slower sales of Nintendo’s Wii console, he said. “Last year you could do no wrong with the Wii,” Shaw said.

Overall, Black Friday weekend total sales rose to $45 billion from $41.2 billion a year earlier, as consumer spent an average of $365.34, up from $343.31 a year earlier, according to a survey for the National Retail Federation by BIGresearch. About 212 million shoppers visited stores and websites during the weekend, up from 195 million a year earlier, BIGresearch said. About 9.5 percent of people began shopping at midnight Friday, up from 3.3 percent a year earlier, BIGresearch said. And by 4 a.m., 24 percent of shoppers were in the stores, the firm said. The number of people who shopped on Thanksgiving rose to 22.3 million in 2010, up from 10.3 percent early shoppers five years earlier, it said. BIGresearch said it polled 4,306 consumers Thursday to Saturday.

While many retailers anticipated losing some Black Friday sales to pre-Thanksgiving promotions, some dealers said the falloff was less than expected. CompUSA and TigerDirect braced for a possible decline, but the stores were filled with customers Friday morning, said President Gilbert Fiorentino of Systemax Technology Products Group, which owns both retailers. “I don’t know what it is, but it brings customers out,” he said. “I guess it is just a tradition, because the stores were packed” Friday. Like Nebraska Furniture Mart, TigerDirect posted strong TV and PC sales, and some heavily-promoted Sony models sold out at TigerDirect.com, Fiorentino said.

The goal in starting discounts earlier is to spread sales more evenly throughout November rather than having a sharp spike at month-end, said Daniel Schuh, executive director of AV products at ABC Warehouse. “The number of people shopping may remain the same, but you are spreading that over a few weeks instead of a few days,” Schuh said. “As a result your overall monthly results could be up, but Black Friday might be down slightly."

While many of the national chains offered discounts on limited quantities of products, many regional chains tried to carry a deeper assortment of the products they promoted, retailers said. “We buy enough inventory so that we can advertise the prices for the whole weekend,” Abt Electronics General Manager Phil Hannon said. “We don’t tell people there are only three or four in stock. If we're going to promote it, we keep plenty in stock. I don’t want to be like everyone else with people lined up out front willing to kill each other and not having any merchandise for them."

The sales were expected to carry over to Cyber Monday, when 106.9 million people were expected to shop, up from 96.5 million a year earlier, BIGresearch said. About 89.5 percent of those surveyed -- or 96 million -- expected to shop from home, BIGresearch said. Seven million planned to use a mobile device for shopping, an increase from 3.8 percent a year earlier, BIGresearch said.