Preliminary results from The NPD Group’s The Anatomy of Black Friday study show that the aggressive pricing posture taken by the CE industry appears to have paid off. Significantly more tech shoppers were driven into the stores (or online) by the prospect of a great, desirable product at a great price. Almost 65 percent of tech purchasers bought in 2011 because they saw what they really wanted on sale. In addition, 28 percent were enticed by the big sales available at the specific retailer where they were shopping. Both of those numbers were approximately 50 percent higher than the overall population of Black Friday shoppers and 10 percent higher than last year.
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After doing much of the cooking for my family’s epic Thanksgiving dinner, I wrestled with the prospect of going out into the cold November night to meet up with 600 of my closest electronics buying friends. My curiosity, however, got the best of me and I ventured out after my family had long gone to sleep. As we all know, Black Friday starts earlier and earlier each year and this Thanksgiving night, around 11pm still smelling of pumpkin pie, I set out to hunt for bargains. I visited my local Best Buy and Walmart– strategically mapped out near my home to avoid the inevitable traffic jams.
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With stores opening their doors on Thursday for Black Friday sales this year, our annual Black Friday retail adventure encompassed a much wider swath of time and space then we have covered in previous years. The end result was some surprising insights and some, what we hope, are interesting observations on how this change has impacted Black Friday.
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Tags: Apple, Best Buy, Black Friday, hhgregg, Office Depot, Radio Shack, Target, Toys R Us, Walmart
Consumer Technology | Stephen Baker, Vice President, Industry Analysis | 
1:43 pm | 
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Best Buy’s poor results today are not a glimpse into the future but a mirror into the past. As we have been saying for much of 2010 this year is likely to be a very difficult one for most consumer electronics categories. Very high penetration rates and the effect of two years of growth above the overall retail economy have put consumer electronics ahead of the curve. It is now time that the rest of the market catches up.
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As I’ve noted when discussing the e-reader market, Amazon and Barnes & Noble have an inherent advantage in garnering overall revenue given that they can call upon databases of millions of active book-buyers. When I wrote about the in-store Nook angle that Barnes & Noble was taking, I mentioned how electronics retailers could benefit from this level of integration. Last week, prior to the Google TV announcement, Best Buy announced it will offer its version of Sonic Solutions’ RoxioNow video program under its original CinemaNow brand, which Best Buy has acquired.
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On its earnings call last week amidst the backdrop of CTIA, Best Buy noted its intention to open 75 to 100 “small-format” stores, the lion’s share of which will be Best Buy Mobile stores. The retailer, which is a dominant seller of televisions and PCs, sees great potential in the “third screen” of the cell phone, even though it has limited control of device pricing (and even less control over subscription pricing). First, it believes that its impartiality, selection, and customer service can offer advantages that the carrier stores cannot. And handsets offer supplemental revenue streams of accessories, Geek Squad setup, and ongoing maintenance and data management services.
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Today is Black Friday, November 28, 2008 - the traditional start of the holiday shopping season - and for what seems like the 100th time (although it is only about 10 times) I awoke early and trudged off to the shopping malls and power centers of Northern Virginia to check on the health of the electronics business. While we won’t know how successful these sales were until December 8th, when NPD’s weekly data is released and we deliver our annual Black Friday shopping report later that week, as well as update everyone through our joint Black Friday webinar with DisplaySearch, I am here to tell you that, based on my shopping this morning, and other reports already trickling out, that our fears that Black Friday would fall flat are likely overblown.
The collapse of sales and consumers’ expectations over the last eight weeks (as well documented in NPD’s weekly tracking service data and the NPD Consumer Technology Holiday Snapshot Report) has been swift and scary. The key question for today is whether that decline can be arrested by the deep discounts and shopping excitement that Black Friday has traditionally brought.
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Hi everyone. It’s my pleasure to welcome you to NPD’s official blog with this inaugural post. As some readers may know, I’ve been blogging for a few years now and am delighted to see NPD proper join the conversation alongside our DisplaySearch colleagues.
My fellow analysts and I will use this forum to offer our perspective on issues affecting our dynamic industry. Our viewpoint is shaped by NPD’s unique point-of-sale and consumer information resources, which help our clients and us understand what is happening in the world of consumer technology and why. It seems appropriate to use Black Friday, the most disruptive day in electronics retailing, as the catalyst to launch our entry into this disruptive medium.
The Consumer Technology Holiday Spotlight Report, now going out to some NPD clients, included the results of a fourth-quarter survey that asked consumers about their holiday plans. Questions focused on popular holiday categories, including flat-panel TVs, notebook and desktop PCs, portable navigation devices, digital cameras, MP3 players and digital picture frames. NPD also asked consumers about what would most motivate them to shop for doorbuster specials or to shop later in the day on Black Friday.
NPD found that the largest segments of likely buyers said they definitely or probably would completely abstain from categories they intended to purchase due to the economy. I’ve already shared some thoughts on the results of this research in my most recent Tech on Deck column.
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