Several years ago my oldest son bought himself an iPad mini. Recently he received his first iPhone and as a result has been using his iPad infrequently. At the same time, my seven-year-old wants to buy an iPad and so his brother offered to sell him his iPad for $250. Over the last two or three weeks my seven year old has been debating if this is a reasonable price and we’ve discussed checking secondary markets like eBay to determine if it is in fact a good price or not.

Several days ago my seven-year-old asked my 11-year-old if he would discount his iPad for Black Friday. After several minutes of questions and a little bit of implicit prodding, my 11-year-old acquiesced by reluctantly agreeing to discount his iPad mini $50 on Black Friday.

As you might guess we spent a lot of time talking about technology trends and around this time year Black Friday is a frequent topic. Well, it has officially entered our every day vernacular.

A few quick thoughts on the holiday shopping season:

November 1st marks the officially official opening of the holiday shopping season. This year we saw a tremendous number of promotions kick-off on November 1st. Walmart kicked off its campaign at midnight and Amazon launched its Black Friday Deals Store, offering “Deals of the Day” through Dec. 22 and weekly “Lightening Deals.”  Amazon is also allowing third-party sellers to participate in the holiday deals featured on the site.

Starting Early. Despite November 1st being the official start of the holiday shopping season, many retailers got an early start this year. BJ’s recently announced they were spreading deals across Black Friday week (and more than doubling the number of offers over last year).  Santas will be at Belk stores on Saturday November 16th for Santafest. Walmart and Kmart both ran their first holiday promotions on September 13th. But not everyone is supportive.  There is a Facebook campaign to boycott shopping on Thanksgiving.  And of course, retailers are opening their doors early on Black Friday.  Which has really become Thanksgiving evening.

True Start of Black Friday is 12:01 AM Thursday. Yes, retailers are opening their doors earlier.  But this year – for the first time – the success of Black Friday will be dictated by what happens online.  And retailers will start this at 12:01 AM on Thanksgiving.

A Social Push. Starting on November 18, Target began highlighting about 100 holiday products across all areas of its stores that have been trending well on Pinterest. BJ’s is launching a Facebook coupon program. Starting on November 22nd shoppers can vote on two different featured products and the individuals who voted for the winning product will have a coupon emailed to them.

Gift Guides. This year I feel like I’ve seen more retailers publish a gift guide. ToysRUs has long published their Great Big Toy Book (called the Great Big ToysRUs Wish Finder this year)Amazon launched an electronics gift guide.

Free Shipping.  The battle over the 2013 holiday is going to take place online.  According to a Shop.org survey from earlier in the year, roughly 35% of retailers said they offer free shipping all year, up from 23.1% a year earlier. Of the retailers not offering free shipping all year, 16% said they would begin offering it as a holiday promotion in 2013. A study from MarketLive finds 91 percent of consumers say they would take advantage of free standard shipping offers this holiday season. Lands’ End recently standardized their free shipping policy (to include all orders over $50) and many others are utilizing free shipping promotions.

Ad Previews. Over the past few years, Black Friday ads were leaked which caused retailers to issue take-down and cease and desist letters.  But retailers are quickly jumping on this bandwagon – releasing previews of their own ads.  Macy’s used Pinterest to provide a preview of items that would be included in their Black Friday promotions.  Historically retailers didn’t wanted their Black Friday circulars public until Thanksgiving Day.  Now most if not all retailers have released their Black Friday promotions two weeks ahead of Black Friday.

Flash Deals. Retailers are again using “flash deals” to promote timed deals.  Retailers are also holding some deals for last minute promotions – outside of their traditional Black Friday circulars. These were printed and distributed at stores at the Black Friday opening in past years, but increasingly I think they’ll be pushed through the retailers’ own apps.

Multiple Door Busters.  Earlier this year I predicted we’d see multiple door buster periods with earlier opening times.  That is exactly what is materializing.  OfficeMax will have doorbusters at 8PM, 11PM, and 5AM.  Walmart will have multiple doorbuster periods as well and is again publishing three different circulars.

Increase in Mobile. Recent research from Google suggests a 17% increase in overall smartphone shopping in 2013. Google also found one in four smartphone owners plan to use their devices to make a purchase — a 21% year-over-year increase.  Google expects mobile holiday shopping to increase on the weekends – especially the weekend after Black Friday. Cross Device: Google’s research found 80% of consumers will use more than one device at once while holiday shopping, and 84% will start on one device and finish on another. Shop.org survey of online retailers found 55 percent saying they are optimizing e-mail for mobile as part of their holiday marketing strategies. 45 percent will use smartphone paid search campaigns and 21 percent will utilize text message campaigns while 17 percent will use QR codes or other bar code scanning promotions.

Leveraging Smartphones Apps. More retailers are starting to utilize smartphone apps, but I expect even more activity in this category. Toys”R”Us recently launched they Toys”R”Us Wish List Wizard, an app allowing parents to scan items they want in-store for automatic inclusion on a digital wish list.

Price Matching. Target expanded their price matching policy beyond the typical 7 -day window during this holiday season. Target will match prices for products purchased between November 1 and December 21st. Staples introduced a new price matching policy as well.

In-Store Pick-up. Target expanded their in-store pick-up program to all stores by November 1st. Best Buy and others continue to promote a multi-channel shopping experience.

Attacking Showrooming:  BestBuy is taking showrooming head-on in some of their marketing and commercial spots with the slogan “your ultimate holiday showroom.”

Parlay Momentum. With a late Thanksgiving and fewer shopping days, retailers are making a big push to carry the momentum of Black Friday into the remaining holiday shopping weeks. Last week Target released their Black Friday preview ads circular. Target is offering 20% of one shopping trip between December 1st and December 7th if you spend $75 or more on Black Friday.  Target is opening at 8PM on Thanksgiving so most of their traditional Black Friday shopping will shift to Thanksgiving Day.  To keep up momentum they are encouraging shoppers to return on Friday and spend at least $75 which in turn will give them 20% off a shopping trip in the following week.  If successful, Target will turn one shopping visit into three.

Here are some great stats on how marketers are approaching the holiday season.

For my past holiday predictions and commentary see the following:

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
Holiday 2012: Part X
Holiday 2012: Part XI – What we Learn from Black Friday EDM Promotions

While we still have CyberMonday before us, the Black Friday weekend is coming to a close.  Most of the promoted items are known.  Here is my rough count of the number of different offers promoted over the weekend for the following tech categories:

For my earlier holiday expectations see the following posts:

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
Holiday 2012: Part X

We’ve seen Black Friday evolve in several ways in 2012.  As I’ve written about elsewhere, Black Friday has gotten longer in several ways.  First, stores have moved their opening hour forward.  But stores have also expanded their Black Friday promotions in several other ways – many of which have to do with the timing of their promotional releases. As retailers have started previewing their official Black Friday circulars in advance, they’ve had to adjust other elements of their promotional cycle. This year promotions and marketing pieces were especially pronounced.  I think it is instructive to review promotional emails in sequence. here’s a week of analysis:

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.

You can start by reading more here:

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

Last week Time provided a quick overview – much of which I covered in depth in my previous posts.  The article relies heavily on the report from Booz & Co.

The retail labor picture remains murky. Applications have dropped sharply since last year.

Kmart and Sears expect sales to increase 3.3 percent during the holiday season – roughly inline with overall holiday projections. Kmart and Sears are eliminating layaway service fees, starting a layaway home-delivery service and are employing new in-store mobile applications.  Staff carrying tablets will be able to check inventory, access product information and assist with checkout.  The company expects the 2012 holiday season to be the busiest shopping season since 2007.

Each year I predict the lowest pricing we’ll see for a variety of tech products during Black Friday.  Last year I predicted we’d see notebook computers selling for as low $299.  In fact Walmart sold a notebook for $198 on Black Friday.  This year I’m predicting the lowest prices we’ll see for notebook computers will be $250 – actually higher than last year. Tonight Walmart’s Black Friday circulate was leaked and it highlighted a notebook computer for $250 – consistent with my forecast and higher than last year’s price.  You can see Walmart’s entire circulate here.