You can see my previous holiday expectations and analysis here:

Holiday 2012: Part I
Holiday 2012: Part II
Holiday 2012: Part III
Holiday 2012: Part IV
Holiday 2012: Part V
Holiday 2012: Part VI
Holiday 2012: Part VII
Holiday 2012: Part VIII
Holiday 2012: Part IX

Here are my initial thoughts on today’s (and really last night’s) Black Friday openings.  Last night I visited a BestBuy, ToysRUs, Staples, Office Max, Target, and two different Walmart stores over the first 12 hours of store openings. Lines both outside and within the stores were as bad as I’ve ever seen them. As I mentioned yesterday, shoppers were queuing outside starting as early as early Wednesday afternoon. BestBuy’s line last night wrapped around the entire building.  I’m not sure I’ve seen the lines ever extend that far.  There were likely some 750 shoppers in line. There was still a line outside a full hour after they opened the doors as shoppers continued to file into the store. ToysRUs and Target showed equally long lines at their respective open.  The first Walmart I visited is open 24/7 so the crowds had already filled the store by their first open (8PM) and only grew larger for their second open (10PM). I wasn’t able to make it to a Sears, but was told they also had longer lines than in the past.  Sears had some very well-priced doorbuster items including a 50″ HDTV at $300 so I wasn’t surprised by these reports.

The office supply stores continue to hold to their 5AM opens and they had crowds consistent or perhaps slightly larger than they experienced the last two or three years.  My personal impressions are that the office supply stores garnered larger crowds several years ago when Black Friday was less pronounced and they were some of the earliest stores to open.  It was also the era of “free” doorbusters and the office supply stores frequently offered several items that were free with rebate.  All-and-all, my own impressions and the reports I’m tracking from other markets suggest overall traffic was up from last year.

The traffic in 2012 did follow a slightly different pattern – the opens had the largest crowds (as usual), but there were still “crowds” throughout other windows of the evening and morning.  This year, the opens were probably larger than last year and the traffic trailed more quickly.  But I still think overall traffic this year was higher with more shoppers braving the stores.  CEA will publish research tomorrow that will either confirm or counter this.

Earlier this fall I predicted retailers would offer unique promotions in several windows as opposed to a single doorbuster period. In 2012, several retailers adopted that strategy. Walmart even had three circulars this year – one for each of their “opens.” I checked a Walmart at 5AM for their third doorbuster release of the morning. The store was nowhere near as crowded as it was at their 8PM or 10pm promotion releases, but the store still had lines for some items (including the TV offer). I rechecked a BestBuy at around 7AM and the store still had good traffic. The parking lot was nearly full and it appeared traffic would hold through at least the morning. While the biggest doorbusters were gone within minutes, there was still inventory for many of the Black Friday promotions.

My friends Ben Arnold and Steve Baker over at NPD have written their thoughts on Black Friday (see here and here). Baker suggests consumers aren’t interested in this additional timed promotions. My experience in the store isn’t consistent with that story. But I do think that it is becoming increasingly difficult for consumers to manage the plethora of timed offers both in-store and online.

As far as products/devices go,  tablets did extremely well as we expected. TVs also appear to have done very well – especially inexpensive ones. There seemed to be good demand across the full spectrum of screen sizes. Apple products were heavy favorites everywhere I checked. Laptops were heavily promoted and they seem to have done pretty well across a number of retailers. DSLR also showed some strength.  I agree with Ben’s assessment – consumers were passing audio generally even though headphones like Beats by Dre were slightly discounted and are high on holiday wishlists.  But I also think the inventory was strong for many of these categories so consumers might be coming back today or tomorrow for them. Consumers might also be looking toward CyberMonday or other online promotions.

For more of my holiday expectations:

Holiday 2012: Part I
Holiday 2012: Part II
Holiday 2012: Part III
Holiday 2012: Part IV
Holiday 2012: Part V
Holiday 2012: Part VI
Holiday 2012: Part VII
Holiday 2012: Part VIII
Holiday 2012: Part IX

On Wednesday afternoon I visited several retailers in advance of Black Friday.  As many retailers have moved up their Black Friday opening times to Thursday afternoon and evening my visit was about 24 hours prior to their respective Black Friday openings.  Here are a few remarks on what I saw:

For more of my holiday expectations:

Holiday 2012: Part I
Holiday 2012: Part II
Holiday 2012: Part III
Holiday 2012: Part IV
Holiday 2012: Part V
Holiday 2012: Part VI

As I predicted in my earlier writings,   a survey last week from Chase Paymentech, a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase & Co., found that online companies are expecting the 2012 holiday shopping season to be better than last year. Fifty-nine percent of e-commerce companies surveyed expect better sales volume this season than in 2011, while almost half (47%) expect it to be better than pre-recession levels in 2007. The companies surveyed expect 6% of holiday sales to come from mobile commerce while 39% expect average ticket prices to be higher (with 45% expecting it to stay roughly the same).

Accenture released their annual consumer holiday shopping study. A few key results:

1) As I wrote about earlier, Thanksgiving Day will be a big online shopping day.  The Accenture study found that half (52%) of consumers would be willing to shop online if retailers offer discounts
2) The survey found a rising interest in shopping on Black Friday relative to the past two annual surveys in 2010 and 2011 suggesting interest around Black Friday could see a pick-up in traffic in 2012
3) About half (51%) of respondents have set aside cash needed to complete their holiday shopping
4) Accenture finds 56% of shoppers say they will search online for the best price and purchase online after seeing a product they want in a traditional brick and mortar store front.  Twenty-seven percent of these shoppers say they will make the purchase on their smartphones or tablets while still out shopping.  This seems like a very high figure.  Research from Traqline presented at CEA’s recent Research conference suggests showrooming (browsing in a brick-and-mortar storefront and then buying from a competing retailer online) is actually only impacting 4-6 percent of sales.
5) Tablets and smartphones will be used by 25% of consumers to complete some of their holiday shopping.  (Note: CEA research finds tablets are now owned by roughly 31% of U.S. households, so this is a very high figure suggesting most with a tablet will use it to complete some of their holiday shopping)
6) Consistent with CEA research, roughly 23% of U.S. shoppers plan to shop between Black Friday and the end of November.

Target and BestBuy both recently announced they will match competing online prices this holiday season.  For Target, the list of competitors is short. The price-match plan, which will be in effect November 1st through December 16th, is limited to identical products sold by a short list of online competitors including Amazon.com and the e-commerce sites of BestBuy, Toys “R” Us, and Walmart.

Consistent with my earlier comments linked above, the  Home Entertainment Source (HES), the A/V specialty division of the BrandSource buying group expects inventories to remain in line this holiday season. HES expects increased price enforcement by manufacturers through recently implemented UPP and multi-channel MPA policies to limit pricing promotions this holiday season within the mid- to premium-price tier segments.   I question if UPP will remain well maintained when companies are looking to capture some of the holiday purchasing  – especially in the face of a trying 2012 for some categories. Jim Ristow expects “retailers to supplement their tier 1 Black Friday buys with hundreds of thousands of off-brand SKUs which could support both a well-maintained UPP while at the same time remain competitive to capture those crucial holiday sales.

Attachments will be a big opportunity this season.  According to the official CEA forecast, I estimate soundbars will be up over 50%

NFR and BIGInsight polled consumers at the beginning of October. The recently released results found 36% would like to receive consumer tech or computer-related accessories as a gift this holiday season, compared with 35% last year. Gift cards were the most wished for present, cited by 61% of respondents, followed by apparel (49%) and books, CDs, DVDs, videos or video games (46%).Fifty-two percent of respondents said they plan to shop online, up from 47 percent last year, and more than a quarter plan to do as much as half their holiday shopping via the web, up from 24.4 percent last year.

Amazon announced they will hire 50,000 seasonal workers at its fulfillment centers across the U.S. this quarter.