Car audio dealers hiding out on Black Friday may want to look at these predictions by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) based on its recent survey:
28 percent of consumers plans to shop on Black Friday in a brick and mortar store.
But at the same time online shopping is growing, so it’s important to have a great online presence that at least drives some business to your shop.
For car audio specialists, the figures underscore the need to get in the game for Black Friday. (Watch our series on Facebook about dealers starting to promote on Black Friday at www.facebook.com/ceoutlook)
The CEA’s latest study found that a record-breaking 103.3 million Americans will shop online between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday this year, an increase of 6.1 million shoppers over 2013.
And of the 143 million U.S. consumers that plan to shop over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, 89 million plan to buy consumer technology products.
Black Friday will be the most popular online shopping day. A quarter of those surveyed said they plan to shop that day. That’s 4 percentage points higher than last year.
At the same time, “Black Friday also will be the most popular day for in-store shopping, with 28 percent of those surveyed planning to shop the day after Thanksgiving – on par with 2013…”
Cyber Monday is also expected to see strong sales with 19 percent saying they’ll shop online on Cyber Monday, a 2 percentage point increase over last year.
Top tech devices on shopping lists are:
- Tablets (for the second year in a row)
2) Televisions (moving up from fourth place last year)
3) Laptop/notebook computers
4) Smartphones (jumping six percentage points from last year)
5) Video game consoles (slipping two spots)
Also about 75 percent of consumers expect to use their smartphones, cell phones or tablets while shopping during the weekend, the highest total recorded by CEA’s annual survey.
For the full CEA press release click here.
