Mobile Devices Took CE Lead Holiday Weekend, CEA Says

After a three-day marathon of Black Friday sales, Cyber Monday was expected to draw 31 million consumers to their keyboards as the four-day shopping weekend charged toward a $43.7 billion start to the 2012 holiday season, according to CEA. Despite the push of Black Friday sales further into Thanksgiving night, Friday remained the most popular day to shop this season, with 29 percent of shoppers, 69.6 million, indicating they shopped or planned to shop that day, according to CEA’s Black Friday Survey. Just over 31 million adults, 13 percent, shopped on Thanksgiving, up from 11 percent last year, CEA said.

Citigroup Investment Research cited ShopperTrak in its weekly retail traffic report for the fourth week of November, saying total U.S. enclosed mall traffic slipped 0.75 percent for the week, versus an increase of 0.58 percent year over year. The figures were below Citi’s forecast of a 2-4 percent boost in traffic for the period, Citi said. Black Friday represented 93 percent of the mix, with 7 percent of total traffic coming on Thanksgiving, a 51 percent increase year over year, it said.

Following what it called “record-level mobile and online traffic over the weekend,” National Retail Federation division Shop.org said “there’s still plenty of demand from shoppers” for Cyber Monday deals. Cyber Monday produces some of “the best deals of the year,” and early indications were that “retailers are not disappointing,” said Vicki Cantrell, executive director of Shop.org. The group expected shoppers to take advantage of numerous free shipping promotions taking place Monday. Shop.org expects 2012 to be a record Cyber Monday, even though many companies reported online traffic growing on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. According to a BIGinsight survey for NRF of 4,005 consumers over the weekend, 27 percent of holiday shoppers said they shopped online on Thanksgiving, and 47.5 percent shopped online on Friday.

CE gear ran second to clothing as the most popular items purchased over the weekend, according to CEA. Through Friday, 63 percent of shoppers had bought clothes, followed by 47 who grabbed electronics. A third of spending by those who shopped or planned to shop was earmarked for electronics, with 10 percent of all shoppers saying they only purchased or only planned to purchase CE products Thanksgiving weekend.

Mobile connected devices were the most popular electronics bought through Friday, CEA said. Walmart did its part to keep the momentum going with a nine-day smartphone deal that began on Black Friday and runs through Dec. 1. Shoppers who buy select Android or Windows-based smartphones with two-year data plans on AT&T, Verizon, Sprint or T-Mobile, will get a $100 Walmart e-gift card good in store or online, according to a Walmart ad. Phone prices ranged from free for the Motorola Atrix HD, Samsung Captivate Glide and LG Lucid to $199 for the Samsung Galaxy 3S and Motorola Droid Razr HD, it said. Gift cards will be mailed to qualified customers Jan. 18, according to the ad, just in time for the traditional post-holiday January retail lull.

Samsung big-screen TVs had a big day Monday, following major discounts for the brand over the weekend. At Sears, where Cyber Monday deals extend through Wednesday at 7 a.m., a 55-inch Samsung 3D LED-lit UN55ES6580 was marked down from $2,199 to $1,297 with four pairs of 3D glasses and a Skype camera thrown in. The step-up Samsung UN55ES7100 was cut $1,002 to $1,597, including four pairs of active 3D glasses, according to the Sears website. Best Buy listed the Samsung 65-inch LED-lit UN65EH6000FXZA TV for $1,499, a markdown of $900, good on Sunday and Monday, but sale prices “may extend beyond the 2-day period,” according to the fine print. Customers who spend more than $250 at Best Buy during its “Cyber Sale,” get a $25 savings code with store pickup, Best Buy said.

Tablet savings showed up on Monday with both Amazon and Barnes & Noble announcing deals. Amazon shaved $30 off the price of the Kindle Fire, which was selling Monday for $129. Barnes & Noble partnered with MasterCard on a gift card promo. Customers who bought select Barnes & Noble Nooks online using a MasterCard were eligible for a complimentary $20 Barnes & Noble Gift Card, along with free shipping, “while supplies last.” The deal applied to purchases of the Nook Tablet, Nook Color, Nook Simple Touch and Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, according to the Barnes & Noble website. At Amazon, $100 discounts were the norm for tablets including a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, sale-priced at $299 and a 10-inch Acer Iconia, cut to $349. Coby 7-inch tablets fell under $100, led by a 4 GB model at $75, we found.

In the struggling PC space, Dell held new doorbuster sales every three hours Monday. An Inspiron 15 with an Intel i3 Core processor, 4 GB RAM and half a terabyte of memory started at $389, a savings of $179, according to Dell. Laptops began at $399 at hp.com, but that site sweetened the deal with a free Simple Touch e-reader with the purchase of any PC.

According to CEA, among shoppers buying CE Thursday and Friday, 26 percent bought a smartphone and 22 percent bought a tablet. A quarter of shoppers bought headphones, 22 percent bought portable media players and one in five bought a video game console over the two-day period, it said. Other popular CE buys included e-readers, TVs, digital cameras and accessories, it said.

CEA’s survey showed mass merchants were the most popular shopping destination on Black Friday. A quarter of respondents reported shopping at a consumer electronics retailer, it said. Overall, 82 percent of those buying technology bought something in a brick-and-mortar store, but through Friday, 39 percent of CE buyers purchased some electronics online, it said.

Results from the Black Friday survey came from a phone poll conducted among two national probability samples, which when combined consists of 247 men and 261 women 18 and older, living in the continental U.S., CEA said. Initial interviews were completed on Nov. 23. Additional data was due Monday, it said.