News

Report says Black Friday down from last year, but November saw modest growth overall

In-store engagement improved, with average duration up and bounce rate down, as the shoppers that did visit the store had a strong intent to buy.

December 4, 2014

In-store analytics firm Euclid has released its monthly retail benchmarks report to analyze shopper activity and behavior during the month of November. This month's report measured data from tens of millions of domestic shopping sessions to reveal that shopping activity increased slightly from October, but slumped compared to November last year. Traffic lagged significantly throughout the month, according to the company, with Black Friday also failing to match last year as deals were more distributed across time and channels. In-store engagement improved, with average duration up and bounce rate down, as the shoppers that did visit the store had a strong intent to buy.

Euclid asserts that its metrics illustrate a modest outlook for industry revenues, and estimates sales growth in the following retail verticals of:

• 1.3-percent growth year-over-year in general merchandise, apparel, furniture and other retail sales
• 0.1-percent decline year-over-year in clothing and apparel sales
• 0.6-percent growth year-over-year in general merchandise sales

Here are some of Euclid’s top findings in this month's report around shopper behavior metrics:

• Shopper traffic declined 20 percent compared to the same month last year as in-store shopper activity was cannibalized by online and mobile shopping sessions.
• Storefront conversion was up 2 percent year-over-year, benefiting from omnichannel consumers and the success of attractive promotions.
• Duration increased 10 percent from last year as a result of increased willingness to browse and explore merchandise. Consumer sentiment and discretionary income have improved greatly from the environment of macro headwinds seen last year.
• Repeat visits declined 1 percent due to omnichannel shoppers accomplishing more purchases in fewer store trips.

The best shopping day of November was Friday the 21st, one week before Black Friday. The 21st actually saw an increase in traffic and storefront conversion compared to the previous year. In addition, significantly longer durations show this was a much more utilized shopping day than it was last year. On the other hand, Monday the 17th was the worst shopping day of the month. Traffic was very low and few outside consumers were attracted into the store.

Black Friday was yet again the busiest day of the month in absolute terms, seeing the most shoppers in the store. However, Thanksgiving Day promotions did appear to steal some of the deal chasing activity away. Compared to last year, traffic declined 6.6 percent on Black Friday. The decline was driven by deep discounts beginning much earlier in the month and continuing after Black Friday. It appears that some consumers felt less frantic about catching deals as they expect them to continue throughout the rest of the season.