Bah Humbug Black Friday? Don't Sweat It, But Be Ready To Ship

Regardless of the outcome of their Black Friday weekend promotions, cross-channel retailers have reason to hold out high hopes between now and Christmas day. Virtually every credible resource suggests that in 2014, we’ll see record growth in online holiday spending. Here’s a sampling of those projections:

• NRF: Average shopper to do 44 percent of their holiday shopping online, most in survey’s history
• CFI Group: 51 percent of consumers to spend 40 percent or more of their holiday gift-giving budgets online
• Forrester Research: Americans to spend $89 billion online this holiday season, up from $78.7 billion in 2013
• PricewaterhouseCoopers: 43 percent of holiday buying will happen online
• EMarketer: E-commerce spending may rise almost 17 percent this holiday season

Much of this online spending will happen last-minute, which creates a good news/bad news scenario for multi-channel retailers and their carriers. The good news is that as more consumers turn to the Web, in-store Black Friday weekend sales won’t necessarily serve as the bellwether of the year’s sales success. As long as shoppers are clicking and carriers shipping, holiday sales are in play.

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