Article from The Wall Street Journal
Early Sales Pay Off, for Now
Retailers See Strong Weekend Traffic but Worry Spending Could Falter; Online Booms
Retailers reported a big jump in consumer spending over the Thanksgiving weekend as shoppers flocked to stores, snapped up online discounts and, according to some merchants, paid repeat visits to the mall.
But the overall increase wasn’t as robust as last year’s. And some indicators showed a decline in spending at stores on Black Friday itself, leading to questions about whether retailers’ new tactics are simply shifting spending to different days and sales outlets.
Merchants with strong Web presences were positioned to be the big winners: for the first time, more than half of consumers said they shopped on the Internet over the weekend. Online spending on Friday alone topped $1 billion for the first time, according to the data-analysis firm comScore Inc. SCOR +2.01%. Continue Reading