Stacks of heavily discounted flat-screen TVs, irons and blenders remained on the shelves at Tesco’s Orpington store two days after Black Friday.

The scene – a dramatic contrast to last year’s drama of shoppers scrapping over electrical items – summed up the flatlining of the shopping event, in bricks-and-mortar stores at least.

Shoppers chose to hit the web rather than the shops this Black Friday

Oxford Street

Oxford Street quieter than usual as shoppers chose to hit the web rather than the stores this Black Friday

Reports suggest a lack of crowds on the high street: Oxford Street seemed to attract fewer shoppers than a standard day; Westfield London looked like a ghost town compared to a usual weekend; and there appeared to be smaller numbers descending on stores at 5am compared to last year.

Footfall slumps 9.6%

Instead of shoppers racing out on the big day, footfall across the UK actually fell by 4.5% according to analyst Springboard. Across the whole weekend, it dropped by 9.6%. This seemed to surprise everyone – Springboard sent an email on Friday predicting footfall would actually balloon by 11.5%.

Experts put the reduced store visitors down to consumers choosing to shop online. Diane Wehrle, marketing and insights director at Springboard, says: “The volume of activity in retail stores over the Friday and Saturday of the Black Friday weekend is lower than last year and the evidence clearly points to the fact that much of this is owing to a significant increase in shoppers using online to participate in the event.”

Certainly figures show that Black Friday was more of a success online, with ecommerce spend ringing to the tune of £760m, up almost 25% on last year. Amazon and Shop Direct both issued press releases filled with record numbers.

“What is clear is that the big winners were those retailers that managed to get their online offering right as consumers raced to mobiles, tablets and laptops to make purchases.

Kevin Jenkins

“Last year’s crowded scenes may not have been repeated on the high street, but early indications do suggest in-store sales remained robust,” says Kevin Jenkins, managing director UK and Ireland, Visa Europe. “What is clear is that the big winners were those retailers that managed to get their online offering right as consumers raced to mobiles, tablets and laptops to make purchases.”

The day wasn’t problem-free for etailers: John Lewis, Boohoo and River Island were among others that experienced errors and crashes. However, thanks to good preparation “this year was a story of success for most with just an estimated £5.31m lost because of website issues,” according to Traffic Defender, which monitored online performance during Black Friday.

Weather woes

But the anecdotes and the footfall figures suggest it was more like ‘Red Friday’ for bricks and mortar retailers.

“The fact the weather was so awful, drizzly and rainy, wouldn’t have exactly encouraged spend,” says Richard Hyman, an independent retail consultant and critic of the US imported shopping day.

Shore Capital analyst Clive Black agrees: “The weather was atrocious in the UK. That has to be added to the footfall data.”

While Hyman believes that overall Black Friday will have been bigger than last year, he was left feeling underwhelmed by the event.

“I don’t think it will have been as big as people expected. In the last year we’ve had 12 months of relentless promotions – it’s the most promotional retail market I’ve ever seen – and this has led to shopper fatigue. If you keeping holding an event or dropping to this price, I’m afraid it’s human nature that the effectiveness of it all diminishes.”

Even before the day, a host of retailers said they were stepping away from the shopping bonanza, with Jigsaw releasing an ‘anti-Black Friday’ manifesto on its site, while Asda, one of the retailers which saw frenzied scenes at its stores last year, pulled out completely.

Offers scaled back

Liberum analyst Tom Gadsby suggests that retailers scaled back the level of offers this year: “In consumer electronics we found plenty of noise but discounts lower than last year, up to 25%.” This was something shoppers also flagged up as they were out on Friday.

However he does suggest the event could have helped fashion chains flog leftover stock. “Unsurprisingly clothing retailers are offering bigger discounts as warm weather has hurt sales of outerwear and knitwear. For the most part the discounts appear less than last year but we see risks at Debenhams, up to 70% off, and M&S, up to 50% off.”

Black Friday in the US

In the US, the change in how consumers were hunting down bargains seemed to be played out quite strongly. Almost the same number of consumers shopped in-store (102 million) over the Thanksgiving weekend compared to online (103 million), according to the National Retailer Federation (NRF).

“It is clear that the age-old holiday tradition of heading out to stores with family and friends is now equally matched in the new tradition of looking online for holiday savings opportunities,” says NRF president and chief executive Matthew Shay.

However, according to some reports the NRF has changed the way it collected data this year, making comparisons difficult.

With such an underwhelming Black Friday, what does this mean for retailers next year? Hyman believes the event will become “more muted” across the board.

Will retailers go all guns blazing on their sites instead? “You can’t do one thing online and not in-store,” says Hyman. “If you’re a multichannel retailer, that’s difficult to do. You can’t have an offer in one channel and not in the other.”

“It could be that as a single day event consumers have become less frenzied about it.

Maureen Hinton

Conlumino analyst Maureen Hinton says: “It seems like this year was good for online buying if you take Black Friday as a promotional period over a couple of weeks from around the last pay day before Christmas, but it could be that as a single day event consumers have become less frenzied about it.”

Here to stay

Black thinks the promotion is still evolving, but ultimately is here to stay. “More retailers got involved in Black Friday this year but they did so on their own terms, taking a more measured approach. Next year I think it will be more extended, with retailers keen to boost the lull in activity before and after Black Friday. It’s not going away.”

“At the moment, loads of retailers will be upbeat about how it went. Whether they come clean at all or at what point they will remains to be seen.

Richard Hyman

Hyman doubts many retail bosses will share the true impact of Black Friday. “At the moment, loads of retailers will be upbeat about how it went. Whether they come clean at all or at what point they will remains to be seen.

“For the majority in the industry, if they could put the genie back in the bottle then they definitely would.”