Consumers Are Still Shopping in Stores Like Macy’s and Target, Despite Growth in Online Sales
Talk of dying brick-and-mortar retailers is ‘way overblown,’ according to one expert. 'Only 6.7 percent of sales are done online in [terms of] total retail sales, so they've got a long way to go to kill the store – the store is still king,’ said Sarah Quinlan, sr. vice president & group head of market insights at MasterCard Advisors. 102 million people shopped at stores, while 103 million hit the Web to score deals over the Thanksgiving shopping weekend, according to the National Retail Federation. Over the past several years, major retailers like Macy's (M), Walmart (WMT) and Target (TGT) have been opening up on Thanksgiving Day, which this year, saw estimated sales of $1.8 billion in store, according to ShopperTrak, and some $1.7 billion online, per Adobe. 'Consumers [have] spoken and said 'I'm going to shop whether you're open or not because the Internet is open all the time -- so I'm going to shop on Thanksgiving evening,’ said Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren. Plus, analysts are bullish on the rest of the holiday shopping season - especially as the job market improves. The National Retail Federation says total sales over November and December will rise 3.7 percent year-over-year to $630.5 billion. TheStreet’s Scott Gamm reports from New York.
