On Monday NPD released consumer technology results to our weekly data clients for the third week of the holiday season and so far sales results are tracking at, or a little better than, our pre-holiday expectations. Prior to the holiday we expected sales dollars to fall between 0 and negative 5 percent for the holiday period. For the first two initial periods we reported on, November sales and Black Friday week sales, revenue has been slightly stronger. With November monthly sales rising less than 1 percent from 2008 due to the strength of sales early in the month, and Black Friday sales falling just 1.2 percent, the trend line has been favoring a closer to flat holiday than our worst case negative expectation.
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I once again have completed my annual Black Friday store observation trip throughout Northern Virginia. Usually I can walk away and say either this is going to be a good holiday season, or a bad one, but this year I have mixed emotions based on what I observed. Many were looking for Black Friday to give us a glimpse into the future of the holiday season and an indicator of where the U.S. economy is heading.
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NPD’s newly released weekly ecommerce data for the first few weeks of the holiday shows, as it has in our monthly tracking all year, a considerable divergence in trends between brick and mortar retailing and online sales. In the weekly data we saw strong results, as expected, for ecommerce during the Cyber Monday week, but in addition we saw very strong growth -stronger than in Cyber Monday week - for ecommerce during Black Friday week. Sales growth in general was much stronger online than in stores for both weeks.
So, is ecommerce the light at the end of the tunnel for consumer technology retailing or is it a freight train, ready to crush physical retailing like Wile E Coyote in the old Roadrunner cartoons? It is fascinating that in the 10 years or so since Internet retailing burst into our consciousness that we are still asking this question.
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Black Friday results for imaging were less than we had expected, and really a disappointment in a sector which has, for so many years, been an exciting holiday electronics driver.
Not only were point-and-shoot camera unit volumes down, but DSLRs declined in units for the first time ever in our weekly data, although just by one percent, despite a lower average price of $618. NPD’s Consumer Technology Holiday Snapshot report revealed that a quarter of those who were intending to buy a DSLR this holiday season were going to put off their purchases. Digital picture frames, 5 inches and greater, were still up 10 percent in units, and were one of the few categories of unit growth over Black Friday, but down seven percent in dollars.
It’s clear that on top of the recession, saturation is playing a large part in the lackluster performance specifically for the point-and-shoot digital camera segment. Three quarters of U.S. households have at least one digital point-and-shoot camera. Retailers and manufacturers need to find ways to reignite a passion among those who may be waiting to trade up. They have to be more aggressive and creative in messaging to consumers, not just about buying cameras, but about all the connections consumers can make with their personal images.
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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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Consumer Technology | Stephen Baker, Vice President, Industry Analysis | 
December 23, 2009 4:19 pm | 
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