A Holiday Rebound: Shoppers Back on Track, First Data’s Transaction Report Says

Consumer shopping during the Thanksgiving-holiday weekend increased 9.4%, almost tripling the growth rate last year, according to card-transaction data released by First Data Corp. In 2014, the holiday-shopping weekend grew by 3.5% over 2013.

The Atlanta-based processor analyzed the volume of transactions made at more than 820,000 merchant locations that were open for business this past Thursday and Friday, and were in business a year ago. It also examined e-commerce transaction volume for these merchants.

This year’s performance should help dispel any notions that the Thanksgiving and Black Friday shopping periods are losing momentum, says Krish Mantripragada, First Data senior vice president of information and analytics solutions. “We’re not seeing that.”

Many large retailers this year unveiled their early holiday deals in advance of Thanksgiving or Black Friday, but that didn’t dissuade consumers from shopping as they traditionally had, Mantripragada tells Digital Transactions News.

The data found that peak transaction growth happened in the early morning hours of Thanksgiving, before tapering off after 4 p.m. that day. “The tradition of spending at midnight or in the early hours of Black Friday didn’t seem to be the focus this year,” Mantripragada says. “The bulk of the shopping happened during the day.”

Much of that growth is attributable to e-commerce sales. Online sales grew 14.3% on Thanksgiving day, with the peak at the 5 a.m. hour when sales increased 40% over the 2014 volume. Overall, online sales increased 19.8% on Thanksgiving and 12.1% on Friday.

By comparison, sales at brick-and-mortar stores grew 12.2% on Thursday and 7.2% on Friday.

Not all reports about in-store sales were rosy. Looking at dollar volume rather than volume of transactions, ShopperTrak, a Chicago-based retail-research firm, said its data estimated sales for the four-day shopping weekend at $20.43 billion, a 10.4% decrease from 2014.

Thanksgiving grossed an estimated $1.76 billion in sales, with Black Friday generating $10.21 billion. “Seven out of the top ten sales days still remain, and December is anticipated to be strong,” said Kevin Kearns, ShopperTrak chief revenue officer, in a press release. “With that in mind, we still maintain our 2.4 percent increase in sales for brick-and-mortar retail this holiday season.”

First Data also analyzed the sales performance of various retail categories. The largest sales growth during the past two-day shopping period was among building material, garden equipment, and supply retailers at 21%, followed by mail order/telephone order merchants at 17.5%.

Mantripragada suggested e-commerce played a role among these merchants, too. MOTO merchants, for example, often offer catalogs, which can generate online orders.