Nov 26, 2018 - Economy

Brick-and-mortar stores cling to life, put Black Friday deals online

Erica Pandey

A sad looking Santa sits in a Christmas area of a shopping mall — Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

While brick-and-mortar continues to dominate shopping numbers, the trend is decidedly online, with foot traffic down this year, per CNBC.

The bottom line: To fend off Amazon, traditional retailers are surrendering at least in part to the inevitable — putting their in-store deals online.

"Brick and mortars are finally realizing, 'You know what? We have to be agnostic as to where we get the sale. We just want the sale.'"

— Moody's retail analyst Charlie O'Shea to Retail Dive.

By the numbers:

Online sales raked in $6.2 billion on Black Friday. That's a 23.6% increase from last year, per Retail Dive.
The boom continued over the weekend. Saturday saw a 29.9% year-over-year increase in online sales; Sunday, 22.9%, according to an analysis by Verizon Enterprise Solutions.
Shoppers are projected to spend a record-breaking $7.8 billion by the end of today, Cyber Monday, per Bloomberg.

But, but, but: Smaller stores will find it difficult to compete with Amazon on speed and price. The tech giant is offering free shipping all holiday season, regardless of Prime membership.

Amazon's rivals, Walmart and Target, are scrambling to compete. Target reported slower-than-expected growth in the third quarter and chalked it up to large investments in speedier shipping.

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Brick-and-mortar stores cling to life, put Black Friday deals online

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