It’s so tough to look through the noise on holiday shopping numbers and say what it means for the underlying economy. The latest data from IBM shows Cyber Monday online sales grew by 20.6% year-over-year, although the average order value was down 1%.
Gotta be some Game of Thrones fans out there
On-line shopping is a secular trend and directly competes with stores. Ultimately, it’s incredibly disruptive to brick and mortar stores and is hitting some kind of tipping point. ShopperTrak reports that retail consumer traffic decreased 4% to 1.8 billion visits (from Thursday to Sunday) compared to last year’s “Black Weekend.” Personally, I live right downtown in a major city and won’t rush out for anything.
The takeaway:
As online shopping continues and grows it will put incredible pressure on traditional retailers and add to the deflationary forces.
