Black Friday or Cyber Monday, Consumer Electronics See Strong Sales

Black Friday or Cyber Monday, Consumer Electronics See Strong Sales

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Woodbury, NYWhile Black Friday has traditionally marked the beginning of the holiday buying season, with notorious traffic congestion both around and within shopping malls, in recent years the following Monday, dubbed Cyber Monday, has proved to be the busiest online shopping day, with more and more consumers opting to shop from their desk chairs.

In fact, according to IBM Coremetrics, online sales in the U.S. increased 19.4 percent on Cyber Monday, with an average order rising from $180.03 to $194.89—an increase of 8.3 percent—edging closer to brick-and-mortar shopping. And this followed a report by the San Mateo, California, analytics firm that the U.S online retail sector saw double-digit growth on Black Friday, compared to 2009—a rise of 15.9 percent, with consumers pushing the average order from $170.19 to $190.80.

In the consumer electronics sector, IBM saw this surge of online shopping as an expansion of their earlier forecast that in-store sales of CE and appliances in U.S. retail stores would get an early start, with consumers spending a larger-than-usual share in November.

“On Black Friday, consumers came, they clicked and they shopped their way across the Internet, and this time, they weren’t just looking for bargains,” said John Squire, chief strategy officer, IBM Coremetrics.

Whether online or at retail, consumer electronics are looming large among holiday shoppers. According to IBM’s analytics, in-store sales in the CE and appliances sector are expected to increase 3.5 percent this year, and the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) reported that CE products were among the most popular items purchased over the Black Friday weekend. CEA’s survey revealed that among those who went shopping on Black Friday, 58 percent bought some type of consumer electronics product. 

This trend seems to be playing out among the online shoppers who sought out CE products on Cyber Monday. According to CNNMoney.com, the five hottest sellers on Cyber Monday were as follows. 

Canon Rebel XS Digital Camera. The Canon EOS Rebel XS digital SLR kit with two lenses, a carrying case and a memory card, which normally sells for $849.99 and was on sale for $599, was sold out before noon at Target.com.

Kindle. This popular eReader was Amazon.com’s best seller, despite not having a Cyber Monday discount, reported CNNMoney.com. The Kindle was offered for its usual price of $139 with free shipping.

iPad. On eBay.com 400 iPads were offered at a 10 percent discount as the Daily Deal on Cyber Monday. The online auction site told CNN they sold out in 20 minutes. “We’re seeing incredible velocity around discounted electronics,” said Johnna Hoff, a company spokeswoman.

Toshiba Laptop. BestBuy.com reported that among its best sellers was a Toshiba laptop with an Intel processor and 250GB hard drive, which sold for just $299.

iPod Touch. CNNMoney also reported that as of “Sunday, November 28, the hottest selling item on Walmart.com was Apple’s newest 8GB iPod Touch.” The device was bundled with a car charger, USB cable, dust cover and cleaning cloth at the sale price of $210 (usually $249).

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