It appears Santa is bringing a mixed bag to retailers this holiday season.
As Cyber Monday officially launches an annual blitz of online deals today (December 1), North American retailers are reporting varied results from Black Friday sales.
Shopbot.ca, a price comparison service, said Canadian web traffic was up 30% during the first two hours of Black Friday sales on Thursday (November 27). Demand for high-end technology was driving the boost in unique web visitors during that period, according to the company.
But in the U.S., early reports from retailers tell a different story.
The National Retail Federation reported November 30 shopping over the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday weekend dropped 5.2% from 141.1 million unique shoppers in 2013 to 133.7 million shoppers this year.
Spending over the American holiday weekend dipped 11.3% from US$57.4 billion in 2013 to US$50.9 billion this year.
But ComScore (Nasdaq:SCOR), a digital measurements and analytics company, found online Black Friday spending actually jumped 26% to US$1.505 billion in 2014 compared with the same day last year when US$1.198 billion in sales were recorded.
So while online shopping appears to be making headway among Americans, consumers in Canada have been more conservative about online deals during the holiday.
A November 26 survey from MasterCard Canada found 51% of Americans planned to shop online compared with 28% of Canadians.
But the same survey found B.C. residents are the most prolific ecommerce users with 37% of West Coast respondents saying they planned to do at least half their shopping online.
The lack of online shopping in Canada perhaps also pushed some ecommerce companies to use more traditional means to get their messages across to British Columbians.
Amazon.ca, which launched same-day delivery service in Vancouver and Toronto last month , took to the skies to promote Cyber Monday sales.
The ecommerce giant chartered a plane that flew a banner over Vancouver Monday morning advertising its website’s deals.
Meanwhile, Loco BC, an organization that promotes the benefits of buying from locally owned small businesses, has teamed up with the City of Vancouver and the B.C. government to hold Buy Local week from December 1-7. This is the event’s third year.
Loco BC argues that locally owned businesses re-circulate more money back into the local economy, pay their workers more and contribute more taxes to municipal and provincial governments than their large chain or big-box counterparts.
Buying local helps to create jobs, says the province, and “consumer spending can help drive B.C.’s economy.”
