Brick-and-mortar purchases still dominated consumer spending during the Thanksgiving weekend. But data released this week shows that e-commerce grew while in-store sales declined compared to 2014.
According to ShopperTrak, brick-and-mortar sales on Thanksgiving and Black Friday this year came in at roughly $12.1 billion, lower than in 2014. Thanksgiving Day grossed an estimated $1.8 billion in sales, while Black Friday brought in around $10.4 billion in sales.
By comparison, Adobe estimated that on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, consumers spent approximately $4.45 billion online. Cyber Monday saw more than $3 billion in spending, according to Adobe.
Mobile had a much larger role in online sales this year as well. Smartphones generated a record 22% share of sales, 70 percent more than in 2014. They also drove more than 50% of traffic to websites according to several estimates.
Yet the story is more nuanced than “in-store declined and online grew.” Much of the growth happened on sites operated by traditional retailers. Therefore beyond Amazon and eBay, the biggest beneficiaries of e-commerce growth, according to ChannelAdvisor, were the so-called "Bricks and Clicks” retailers.