Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend Proved the Omnichannel Customer Has Fully Matured

 
Now widely reported, last weekend’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales were record-breaking on all accounts. Nearly 200 million customers hit physical retail stores over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend according to NRF, a feat all of its own and a validation of the brick & mortar store in an age of omnichannel sales strategy. But perhaps more importantly, Black Friday and Cyber Monday set online sales records, hitting $9.12 billion and $11.3 billion respectively. In Cyber Monday’s case, it’s now the top day in terms of online retail sales in U.S. retail history.

With so many gold stars for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, what are some of the biggest takeaways? Optimism was in short supply leading into the long weekend, and yet it over-performed on multiple accounts. MarketScale’s host of “Point of Scale,” James Prebil, sees this as a pinnacle moment not just for retailers, but for retail shoppers too. After two acute years of navigating evolving online and physical channels to get their critical goods, Prebil says consumers are savvier than ever when it comes to finding the best way to spend big and still save.

James’ Thoughts

“The big takeaway for me for what we saw in retail outlets from Black Friday and from Cyber Monday results are that we are seeing the true maturity of the omnichannel-aware consumer. And so what do I mean by that? What I mean is that through shopping behaviors that were sped up by the necessities of the pandemic and doing the majority of shopping online, consumers are now well-educated and aware that they can find deals that are just as good or sometimes even superior to in-store brick and mortar deals in the holiday buying season, in an e-com environment.

They can go on and at their leisure, when they want, not necessarily just on one day needing to physically go wait outside and long lines in a store, they can find those deals that meet their shopping needs throughout the holiday season.

I think we’re going to see not only this trend continue, of there being a more even brick and mortar to e-com split in spending over the holiday season, but we’re also gonna see that holiday season get stretched out over a longer period of time, rather than being so specifically concentrated around Black Friday.”