Is Cyber Monday the New Black Friday?
Is Cyber Monday the New Black Friday? While Black Friday fell short of its predicted mark, retailers are still optimistic about Cyber Monday’s possibilities. Despite hopes that Black Friday would signal a massive reversal in the economy, on average consumers spent only slightly more than 1% more than the previous year. The total spending estimated at $41.2 billion dollars, up a mere shade over last year’s $41 billion, tales of stores emptying out on in the afternoon where common around the country.
Despite the fact that the amount of people lining up early in the morning rose sharply from 23% to 31.2%, the extra effort on behalf of more consumers this year affirms the public’s anxiety over spending money in this market climate.
Conversely online shopping purchases are estimated at $595 million on Black Friday, an 11% increase over last year’s traffic. Early studies show that 96.5 million Americans plan to shop on Cyber Monday this year, up from the 85 million of 2008. Though the higher amount of traffic creates slowdowns with the sites, this year shopping websites experienced fewer breakdown and outages than any year previous.
The playing field is being leveled. The popularity of shopping in person is gradually giving way to the convenience of shopping online, despite major overhauls in brick-and-mortar retailer’s approach to crowd control.
Crowd control? Long lines? Early mornings? The real question is when the brick-and-mortar stores are obsolete, will we even miss them?
