The annual race to snag a flat-screen television, toys and other holiday gifts at a bargain price wasn’t happening only on foot, but also in the palm of shoppers’ hands on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
Throughout the Bay Area and nationwide, shoppers checked their smartphones before and after they entered the stores, often comparing prices they found on their screens against sticker prices or printed advertisements from other retailers. Combining online and physical shopping, these eager buyers are hoping to squeeze out a few extra dollars in savings quickly as the busy holiday shopping season swings into high gear.
“People are more likely to use their phones during the holiday season to shop,” said Yory Wurmser, a retail analyst with eMarketer. “Part of it is they’re doing it on the run while they’re shopping in person. They’re doing research on their phones, buying on their phones.”
The industry even has a name for these consumers: “omni-channel shoppers,” who switch back and forth from shopping on their desktop, telephone, mobile devices and other channels.
Retailers want more of these eyeballs, so they try to entice shoppers to download their mobile app on Black Friday by promising deal previews, app-only bargains, giveaways and other special features in hopes that consumers will spend more money while revealing valuable data about their shopping habits. Meanwhile, larger screens on smartphones, more mobile-friendly sites and buy buttons on social networks have made shopping on the go easier than ever.
“If consumers have the app downloaded or are on a Web browser, they essentially have that store in their pocket continuously,” said Shawn DuBravac, chief economist and senior director of research of the Consumer Technology Association. Stores “want to enable consumers to be in touch with the retailer, thinking about the retailer but also be able to make purchases.”
The trade group estimates that a record 155 million U.S. consumers planned to shop during Black Friday and the surrounding week, with more than half expected to use a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet while shopping, according to CTA’s pre-Black Friday survey.
Technology made Black Friday shopping a breeze for 46-year-old Kimberly Yates of Oakland, who works two jobs to support her 15-year-old daughter’s tuition at a private high school in Berkeley.
After pulling a night shift processing samples in a microbiology lab, Yates, who had her lab coat tucked under several other layers, plopped herself down in the Macy’s shoe department at the Stanford Shopping Center on Friday morning.
Having done some advance research on her desktop, she already had an idea of what she was looking for: $20 knee-high brown boots for daughter Dejanae that she would try to keep hidden until Christmas.
“Find something awesome in size 9, I have a teenager,” she told a Macy’s sales associate, who also had a mobile device in hand. He quickly scanned the items in stock — for the brand Yates had already chosen online and similar items — and rushed to bring them to her side.
“I did nothing once I did the shopping, I just sat down!” Yates exclaimed.
Using Bluetooth technology, Macy’s this year also gave shoppers a chance to win prizes such as a trip to New York, a shopping spree, a makeover and more if they downloaded the retailer’s shopping app and walked into the store from Thanksgiving through Saturday — an example of how retailers have been trying to blend the online and in-store shopping experience.
At Broadway Plaza in Walnut Creek, Michelle Villavicencio of Hercules flipped through a digital folder with 12 to 15 shopping apps stored on her iPhone: Macy’s, Kohl’s, Target, HomeGoods, you name it, to figure out what departments and stores to hit and in what order that day.
“It saves me from going through the newspaper and keeping track of all those paper coupons,” Villavicencio said.
She still enjoys shopping in the stores every year on Black Friday with her friend Cecilia Angat of Rodeo, who sticks to the traditional methods of checking out sales ads. Before hitting the stores in the morning, Angat showed up at her friend’s house with a stack of newspaper advertisement circulars for them to root through.
While shopping on mobile devices is rising fast, it still is expected to make up less than 2 percent of total retail spending, most of which happens in the store, according to eMarketer. In 2015, retail spending on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets in the United States is expected to hit $74.93 billion this year, up from $56.6 billion in 2014.
“People are still going to use multiple channels and essentially omni-channel shop, so using their phone while in the store rather than going home or buying on their desktop. More of that is moving onto the phone each holiday,” Wurmser said.
Some shoppers said they head to the crowded stores in person because it’s an annual tradition or they wanted to physically try out the items before spending money. Others, noticing inaccurate information on the mobile apps or no difference with shopping on a desktop, also decided to stick to shopping the old-fashioned way.
“It’s more like socializing,” said Sarah Hicks of San Jose. “We found a few Christmas gifts for friends. Clothes, funny gifts, joke gifts.” Hicks was shopping with Nicole Wallerstein at Westfield Valley Fair in San Jose and was one of the early shoppers at the mall.
With some stores releasing deals well before Thanksgiving and the convenience of online shopping, the frenzied crowds that have become emblematic of Black Friday appeared thinner and the parking lots emptier.”My guess is a lot of people came in at midnight and now they’re home,” said Randall Kleveland, who was shopping with his wife, Emie, and two kids at the San Francisco Premium Outlets in Livermore. “Also, we were at my cousin’s house last night and they were all shopping online. I have a feeling they’re not coming out today. And there’s more and more people buying stuff online.”
Staff writers George Avalos, Eric Kurhi, Joyce Tsai and Karen de Sá contributed to this report. Contact Queenie Wong at 408-920-2706. Follow her at Twitter.com/qwongsj.
