After eating turkey on Thanksgiving, shoppers were expected to flock to stores across the US in record numbers to snag ‘Black Friday’ deals, but today, which is the busiest shopping day of the year , only a few numbers were seen on shop doors as the weather cooled.
“Only about 20 people have gone through the vending machines so far,” said Jimena Silva, an employee at the Target store in Raleigh, North Carolina, who witnessed heavy rain on Friday.
Silva, 23, added that the number of customers in the shop was higher in previous seasons, but he expects more visitors later on.
According to the National Association of Retailers, about 166.3 million people plan to shop from Thanksgiving to the following Monday, which is about eight million more shoppers than last year.
But with occasional rain in parts of the country, shops were less crowded than expected on Black Friday morning.
A report from “Adobe Analytics” showed that US shoppers’ spending on online purchases increased 3% on Thanksgiving this year, with mobile purchases leading the increase. Black Friday online sales are projected to reach $9 billion, up a modest 1% from last year.
Retail companies are offering steep discounts, both online and in their stores, which could hurt margins in the fourth quarter of the year.
