Not everybody was headed for the brick and mortar locations on Black Friday – in fact, many consumers let their mouse do the walking when shopping the day after Thanksgiving, according to data from comScore. Thanksgiving spending was up, too, as were all other portions of the month.
In fact, the kick-off to the 2012 holiday shopping season included a number of brick and mortars advertising open stores on Thanksgiving Day – cyber shoppers seemed to take this to heart, but hopped online rather than into the car to do their shopping. Online spending surged 32% over 2011 on Thanksgiving, and 28% on Black Monday.
Still, the biggest single day for online was indeed Cyber Monday, and almost $5.5B was spent during Cyber Week. In fact, comScore said this year’s Cyber Monday was the biggest online spending day ever.
Here are the stats from comScore:
| Date | 2011 | 2012 | Change |
| 11/1-30 | $17,791 | $20,376 | 15% |
| 11/22 Thanksgiving | $479 | $633 | 32% |
| 11/23 Black Friday | $816 | $1,042 | 28% |
| 11/24-25 Tkg Weekend | $1,031 | $1,187 | 15% |
| 11/26 Cyber Monday | $1,251 | $1,465 | 17% |
| 11/26-30 Cyber Week | $4,928 | $5,462 | 11% |
| Source: ComScore | |||
| Dollars in millions |
RBR-TVBR observation: We can’t say it enough: There is nothing stopping a traditional business from having a meaningful online presence and sharing in the burgeoning income headed for online businesses. That means broadcasters should encourage clients to market the online as well as the traditional aspects of their businesses; and broadcasters should follow this advice as well and make sure they have their own meaningful online presence.
