Brands See Online Sales Lift Thanksgiving Weekend

Sales performance over the Thanksgiving and Black Friday weekend was an online success, according to RetailNext, which also reported a decrease in U.S. store sales of 4.2 percent on a 4.4 percent decline in store traffic over the same period a year ago.

Many brands saw “tremendous lift in their online channels that will positively impact overall performance, and Black Friday weekend was consistent with the expectations for a previously forecasted 3.2 percent rise in seasonal sales," said Shelley E. Kohan, vice president of retail consulting at RetailNext.

"If anything, the weekend results underlie the importance of brands effectively converging digital and physical channels to deliver a single, seamless shopping experience to consumers, particularly during the high-volume holiday season, as well as engaging store traffic to ensure conversion somewhere along a brand's many shopper touchpoints."

"Overall, it's important to recognize that results for physical retail were in line with expectations considering the hangover from Election 2016, the ease and convenience of online shopping and the retail industry's own promotional creep that has seen Black Friday quickly evolve from first a single-day event to a weekend, then to a week and now on to a month-long event."