While we're still waiting for the final figures for the Thanksgiving and Black Friday impact on store sales, we have the online impact in-hand and it's remarkable. According to Adobe Digital Insights:
We spent a record $5 billion online on Black Friday
Online sales increased 16.9 percent year over year!
61 percent of the purchases were made from mobile devices
54 percent of the sales were recorded on mobile devices
In separate research, in-store traffic was off by about 2 percent on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
The increase online should easily be enough for new shopping records to have been set generally (the National Retail Federation is estimating a 4 percent increase from the weekend all-in) but the trend is truly remarkable.
It's not like the internet or mobile sales are new things and near 17 percent increases year over year are pretty incredible numbers.
It's somewhat notable that those who shopped online from a computer spent more generally than those on mobile devices but the trend is clear. It's a reminder, especially for small businesses, to have a mobile first strategy in mind and ensure that your website isn't designed primarily for those on a computer.
This is the biggest mistake I see today with smaller businesses digitally. Most traffic is coming from mobile and it's only likely to grow.