by Richard Handford

Americans love Black Friday, unlike us foreigners who, until we have learnt better, think its name commemorates a misfortune such as a stockmarket crash. In fact, it is of course a joyous occasion, providing one is a margin-hunting retailer or a bargain-conscious consumer.

Black Friday is always the day following Thanksgiving Day (this year it fell on 23 November) and signals the start of the traditional Christmas shopping season. Bricks and mortar retailers have always opened early in the morning of the Friday, offering attractive promotions to lure shoppers from their homes and into stores.

But in recent times, opening times have crept earlier and earlier. In 2011, several retailers opened at midnight on Thanksgiving Day itself. And then this year, several big stores, including Wal-Mart, announced they would be opening at 8pm on Thanksgiving Day.

Opening time is not the only tradition associated with Black Friday that is undergoing a change. A report by Branding Brand, a mobile commerce platform used by US retailers, described a “substantial” increase in consumer shopping on smartphones this year.

The company monitored 66 mobile sites it had developed for retailers selling a range of goods including clothes, health & beauty and home goods. The company found its sites had more than 3.5 million visitors. Interestingly, of this figure nearly two-thirds came from visitors using iOS devices as opposed to one-third on Android devices.

The average order value was US$79 with iOS device owners (US$80) more willing to splash out than slightly stingier Android users (US$75).

But more striking was when Branding Brand analysed the year-on-year gains for the 26 mobile sites it tracked in both 2011 and 2012. Here there was a marked difference between the two years. Visits have more than doubled from 2011 to 2012, as have the number of page views. And mobile sales increased by 128 percent, although the value of the average order actually decreased by 7.5 percent.

Similarly striking numbers emanated from PayPal which said it experienced a 173 percent increase in sales via mobile devices on Black Friday in 2012 compared to last year.  And these results are before so-called Cyber Monday (26 November), a rather more recent tradition than Black Friday, which is the biggest online shopping day of the year.

PayPal also said shoppers in Houston made the most purchases via their mobile devices on Black Friday while not explaining why the Texan city should be out in front of other US cities. The rest of the top five was made up of Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and New York.

And mobile devices are now a significant part of the total figure for online sales. Purchases on mobile devices now account for 16 percent of all online sales, according to IBM. And the iPad on its own accounts for 10 percent of that figure.

But like Branding Brand, IBM found a decline in average spend. It said that the average online spend per person fell by 4.7 percent to US$181 (bear in mind this is all online purchases, not just those made via a mobile device).  And the average number of purchases fell by 12 percent to 5.6.

Another example of decline goes back to that new habit developed by retailers of opening late on Thanksgiving Day itself, rather than waiting for the morning of Black Friday. That tactic has stretched the shopping experience and actually led to a drop in sales of 1.8 percent this year to US$11.2 billion in traditional retail outlets, according to ShopperTrak which analyses foot traffic. It was the first drop in four years, said the firm.

So Black Friday is getting pulled in a number of different directions. Traditional retailers are responding to online competition by opening earlier and earlier, meaning many shoppers don’t make their purchases on the actual day. And growth in online transactions, including via mobile devices, are keeping consumers in their sitting rooms, or a location other than the actual retailer. If this trend continues then us foreigners’ ignorant mistake could turn out to be an apt name for American retail’s biggest day of the year.

The editorial views expressed in this article are solely those of the author(s) and will not necessarily reflect the views of the GSMA, its Members or Associate Members.