The official kick-off of the holiday shopping seaon: Black Friday. The hangover from yesterday has began as shoppers are still recovering from waiting in line at 5 AM and putting ice packs on their bruises from the shopping stampedes. For those that did their Black Friday shopping online, they slept in and purchased deeply discounted items from the comfort of their own home. Ebay was kind enough to document Ebay.com purchases on a real-time interactive map.
It only takes a glance to see that most of the online purchases occurred on the East Coast. So where did all of the West Coast shoppers go? Well, let’s go through the possibilities:
1. West Coast shoppers did most of their Black Friday shopping offline, visiting stores in person
2. The West Coast has been hit harder by the recession, so shoppers didn’t spend very much.
3. Ebay may be more popular on the East Coast, where West Coast shoppers did their online shopping at other retail websites.
The most probable choice is #2, as West Coast shoppers (particularly California) have been hit the hardest by the recession. These shoppers were lured by the deeper discounts taking place in stores such as Best Buy and Walmart. Check out the interactive map showing sales starting at midnight and progressing minute-by-minute until the end of Black Friday. Regardless of the fact that these statistics are only for Ebay.com, their wide array of products ranging from houses to t-shirts makes Ebay an accurate representation of the entire retail industry.
What where the hottest items?
Pricegrabber.com has already released their Black Friday sales statistics, and the hottest products will surprise you. Tires had the highest sales growth over 2008 with a 118% increase. How did cellphones and laptops do? A measly 26% and 17% respectively. The hottest product for Black Friday 2009 turned out to none other than the Nintendo Wii, a game console released in 2006. Even though I do not partake in the Black Friday shopping tradition (I’m not a morning person, regardless of the occasion), I may have to join in on the tradition as the Black Friday sales and feeding frenzy seem to grow every year.
We want to know where did you do your Black Friday shopping, and what did you buy?
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I live in California, and I didn’t buy anything on Black Friday. After hearing about the injuries last year, I just wait until Cyber Monday and buy stuff online.