Page 12 - aruba-today-20221129

A12 BUSINESS
Tuesday 29 November 2022
Cyber Monday deals lure in consumers

amid high inflation

By HALELUYA HADERO
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Days
after flocking to stores on
Black Friday, consumers
are turning online for Cyber
Monday to score more dis-
counts on gifts and other
items that have ballooned
in price because of high in-
flation.
Cyber Monday is expect-
ed to remain the year’s
biggest online shopping
day and rake in up to $11.6
billion in sales, according
to Adobe Analytics, which In this Dec. 12, 2016, photo, a person searches the internet for
sales, in Miami.
tracks transactions at over Associated Press
85 of the top 100 U.S. online
stores. That forecast repre- Electronics, active wear, cal stores improved 0.1%
sents a jump from the $10.7 toys and health and beau- from a year ago. However,
billion consumers spent last ty items were among those spending per customer
year. that provided a big boost, dropped nearly 7% as cau-
Adobe’s numbers are not the two groups said. tious shoppers did more
adjusted for inflation, but Meanwhile, consumers browsing than buying. An-
the company says de- who feared leaving their other company that tracks
mand is growing even homes and embraced e- store traffic Sensormatic
when inflation is factored commerce during the pan- Solutions said store traffic
in. Some analysts have said demic are heading back was up 2.9% on Black Fri-
top line numbers will be to physical stores in greater day compared to a year
boosted by higher prices numbers this year as nor- ago.
and the amount of items malcy returns. The National “Shoppers are being more
consumers purchase could Retail Federation said its thoughtful, but they are
remain unchanged or recent survey showed a going to more than a
even fall compared to pri- 3% uptick in the number of few retailers to be able to
or years. Profit margins are Black Friday shoppers plan- make a determination of
also expected to be tight ning to go to stores. It ex- what they are going to buy
for retailers offering deeper pects 63.9 million consum- this year,” said Brian Field,
discounts to attract bud- ers to shop online during Sensormatic’s global lead-
get-conscious consumers Cyber Monday, compared er of retail consulting and
and clear out their bloated to 77 million last year. analytics.
inventories. CONSUMERS ARE SPEND- Overall, online spending
Shoppers spent a record ING CAUTIOUSLY has remained resilient in
$9.12 billion online on Black Mastercard Spending- the past few weeks as ea-
Friday, up 2.3% from last Pulse, which tracks spend- ger shoppers buy more
year, according to Adobe. ing across all types of items on credit and em-
E-commerce activity con- payments including cash brace “buy now, pay lat-
tinued to be strong over and credit card, said that er” services that lack inter-
the weekend, with $9.55 overall sales on Black Fri- est charges but carry late
billion in online sales. day rose 12% from the fees. In the first three weeks
Salesforce, which also year-ago. Sales at physical of November, online sales
tracks spending, said their stores rose 12%, while on- were essentially flat com-
estimates showed online line sales were up 14%. pared with last year, ac-
sales in the U.S. hit $15 bil- RetailNext, which captures cording to Adobe.
lion on Friday and $17.2 sales and traffic via sen- It said the modest uptick
billion over the weekend, sors, reported that store shows consumers have a
with an average discount traffic rose 7% on Black strong appetite for holiday
rate of 30% on products. Friday, while sales at physi- shopping amid uncertainty
about the economy.
Still, some major retailers
are feeling a shift. Target,
Macy’s and Kohl’s said
this month they’ve seen
a slowdown in consumer
spending in the past few
weeks. The exception was
Walmart, which reported
higher sales in its third quar-
ter and raised its earnings
outlook. q