As previously reported, this year’s Black Friday was a record one for e-commerce, having surpassed a billion dollars in spending, according to comScore.
Experian Hitwise has also released some data, indicating that Black Friday online retail traffic in the U.S. increased 60% in 2012 copmared to last year, as the top 500 retail sites received over 179 million total U.S. visits.
Ahead of Cyber Monday, the holiday week of online traffic to the top retail site was already up 7% on average, according to the firm. Online retail traffic was down 1% on Black Friday compared to Thanksgiving Day 2012 traffic this year, a spokesperson for Experian Hitwise tells WebProNews.
According to their data (confirming that of comScore’s), Amazon.com remained the top visited retail site on Black Friday while Walmart was the second most visited retail site.
Also noteworthy: BestBuy moved up to the 3rd most visited site while Target was the 4th most visited site, and JC Penney moved up from being the 8th most visited retail site on Thanksgiving Day to the 5th most visited on Black Friday. Among the top 5 sites, the spokesperson tells us, JC Penney saw the biggest day-over-day growth at 26%. The Apple Store saw the biggest day-over-day growth at 99%.
“As we noted from our CEI data that consumer optimism is at an all-time this holiday weekend and retailers could see traffic significant gains for 2012 versus 2011,” the spokesperson says. “Last year Cyber Monday claimed the prize as the busiest shopping day of the year, growing from 138 million online visits to 177 million total US visits to the top 500 Retail sites, a 29% growth comparing 2011 to 2010.”
Last year, he notes, Cyber Monday, Black Friday and Thanksgiving were the top 3 Email Transaction days during the holiday season.