Black Friday shows slight increase
Black Friday, the official start of the holiday shopping season in the United States, showed a 2.2-percent boost in the number of shoppers going to the malls. |||
Washington – Black Friday, the official start of the holiday shopping season in the United States, showed a 2.2-percent boost in the number of shoppers going to the malls, according to early estimates Saturday.
But the estimates showed only a 0.3-percent increase in spending.
The company ShopperTrak, which monitors the sales said retail sales increased 0.3 percent on last year with consumers spending 10.69 billion dollars in various retail locations.
Comparatively, sales on Black Friday 2009 increased 0.5 percent versus Black Friday 2008, with 10.66 billion dollars spent.
“This means the American shopper has adapted to the economic climate over the last couple of years and is possibly spending more wisely as the holiday season begins,” said ShopperTrak founder Bill Martin.
Many retailers pushed consumers to their websites with various online only sales, which most likely had also influenced Black Friday performance, he added.
This tendency was confirmed by PayPal, an online payment service, which reported approximately a 27-percent increase in total payment volume on Black Friday 2010, compared to the previous year.
“The tough economy has made shoppers more price-conscious, and this year’s Black Friday results show that they’re going online to find the best deals,” said Amanda Pires, senior director at PayPal.
“With the convenience of shopping from a laptop or mobile phone, more people are choosing to avoid the long lines, parking chaos and early morning rush in exchange for great online deals available from the comfort of their homes,” she added. – Sapa-AFP
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Consumer Reports Poll Uncovers How Americans Spend Holiday Season
Yonkers, NY, United States (AHN) – A new Consumer Reports holiday shopping poll has found that the average American expects to spend about 42 hours buying, wrapping, and returning gifts, as well as partying and traveling to visit family and friends during the 2010 holiday season.
“When you break down the numbers you really get an idea of how much so many of us have invested in the holidays,” said Tod Marks, Consumer Reports senior editor and resident shopping expert. “And it’s nice to see that it’s not all about shopping, but it’s also about coming together.”
According to the findings Americans will spend the next few weeks doing the following:
Gifts
• Consumers will spend lots of time gift-shopping, 15 hours on average. Women plan to spend twice as long as their male counterparts, 20 hours versus 10 hours respectively.
• Shoppers estimate they will wait on checkout lines in stores for about three and a half hours, on average; one in four expect to stand in line four hours or more.
• Once they get home, Americans plan to spend about three hours, on average, wrapping gifts; one in four expect to spend four or more hours doing so.
• Americans anticipate that they will devote about an hour, on average, to returning holiday gifts; half say they won’t spend any time making returns.
Entertainment
• About 15 hours, on average, will be spent attending holiday parties, gatherings or events with friends or family; a quarter (24 percent) of Americans plan to will spend 20 hours or more.
The poll also found that Americans estimate that they will spend 7.4 hours on average traveling to or from their holiday destinations. Nearly a quarter say they will spend 10 hours or more travelling.
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Google’s Holiday Gift to Airline Passengers; Free Wi-Fi Internet
Mountain View, CA, United States (AHN) – For the second year in a row Google is offering free Wi-Fi service in the skies during the holidays. Millions of passengers on AirTran, Delta, and Virgin America flights will have access to surfing the Web for free on flights between Nov. 22 and Jan. 2, 2011.
AirTran, Delta, and Virgin America have all outfitted their entire domestic fleets with Wi-Fi capability, totaling more than 700 planes.
Google is hoping that the Gogo Inflight promotion will boost users of Google Chrome.
“Not too long ago, flying home for the holidays meant disconnecting for several hours until you touched down at your destination,” said Sundar Pichai, Google’c vice president of product management for Chrome.
“Today, Wi-Fi technologies allow us to stay connected even at 30,000 feet above the ground, so we can read the news, browse the web and send that last-minute planning email before the family reunion.”
All three airlines have fleet-wide Wi-Fi that typically costs between $6 and $13.
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