The CTA (formerly CEA) estimated that 56.9 million American adults (45% of all shoppers) bought or planned to buy technology products over the Thanksgiving shopping week (from the 23rd – 30th November).
A new report by the CTA found that online and mobile shopping continued to grow in importance this year. The number of people using these channels is approaching those who bought goods in-store. Among the 125 million Americans planning to shop throughout the week, 85% of them did some shopping online or via a mobile device, compared to 94% buying in physical stores. 74% of these shoppers purchased goods online and 57% did so through a mobile device.
85% of online and mobile shoppers gave ‘avoiding crowds’ as their reason for doing so; 79% said that it saved time; and 78% said that they could find similar or better deals that in-store. 57% said that they chose to shop online to look for goods outside of physical store hours.
It was estimated that Americans would spend $40 billion over the Thanksgiving shopping week. Consumers spent an average of $319 each: 14 percentage points lower than 2014, but an increase from 2013. In total, 27% of US adults shopped on Black Friday (up from 24% in 2014) and 10$ on Thanksgiving Day (down from 14%).
The top technology purchases were expected to be smartphones; TVs; tablets; accessories; laptops; videogame consoles; DVD and Blu-ray players; headphones; fitness trackers; and digital media streaming devices, in that order. This is the first year that emerging technology products, such as fitness trackers, have appeared in the CTA’s top 10 list.
Total US technology spending over the entire Christmas shopping season will rise 2.3%, says the CTA, to reach a record $34.2 billion.
This article is being written on Cyber Monday, before most of the US is even awake, so we do not yet have firm data. However, the CTA predicts that 44.3 million US adults (18%) will shop on the day, on par with 2014.
