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Upside from Wal-Mart’s Black Friday, Cyber Week, and Web Blitz

Phalguni Soni

Key Spend Trend Analysis for the 2015 Holiday Season

(Continued from Prior Part)

Thanksgiving weekend spend trends

Continuing the discussion on spend trends during the Thanksgiving weekend, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are two of the biggest shopping days of the year and of the Thanksgiving weekend.

The National Retail Federation (or NRF) estimates that about 87 million shoppers purchased items on Black Friday and 127 million purchased items on Cyber Monday in 2014.

Wal-Mart’s Black Friday deals

Retailers have been bringing forward Black Friday deals earlier and earlier each year. Wal-Mart (WMT), the world’s largest retailer, has announced that most of its Black Friday deals will be available online at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time on Thanksgiving, with Black Friday deals being available in stores commencing at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Thanksgiving.

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The retailer is also assuring the “deepest availability” of its most popular products, so customers aren’t disappointed due to shortages. These include HDTVs, wearables, toys, appliances, and video game consoles, among others. Popular products include Star Wars (DIS) merchandise and other toys, Fitbit (FIT) wearables, and Xbox (MSFT) and PlayStation (SNE) gaming consoles.

Cyber Week and Cyber Monday

In 2014, Wal-Mart reported record sales on Cyber Monday and Cyber Week, with 1.5 billion page views in the five days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. Web sales grew 18% year-over-year in fiscal 4Q15. Wal-Mart is projecting a low-to-mid–teens rate of growth in web sales in fiscal 2016.

Walmart’s Cyber Monday deals will start earlier this year. All of Cyber Monday’s ~2,000 deals will start at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday, November 29, at Wal-Mart stores. The retailer also plans to have Cyber Week last from November 28 to December 4, 2015, with ~2,000 online deals per day. Wal-Mart is also expecting 210 million app visits in this holiday season, up from 18 million in 2013.

Wal-Mart makes up 4% of the portfolio holdings of the Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF (VDC).

For more updates and analysis, please visit Market Realist’s Consumer Discretionary and Retail page.

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