Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States (the fourth Thursday of November). Since at least the 1930s, it has been regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the US, and most major retailers open very early (and more recently during overnight hours) and offer promotional sales.
Americas annual Black Friday shopping extravaganza was short on fireworks this year as U.S. retailers discounts on electronics, clothing and other holiday gifts failed to draw big crowds to stores and shopping malls.
Major retail stocks counting Best Buy and Wal-Mart closed lower while Target, picked out by one analyst for its promotion strategy, saw its shares tick up.
Retailers have taken the sense of urgency out for consumers by spreading their promotions throughout the year and what we are seeing is a result of that, said Jeff Simpson, director of the retail practice at Deloitte. Traffic in stores was light on Friday, while Thursday missed his expectations, he said.
Despite avoiding the Black Friday bustle, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is still managing to generate holiday buzz on Main Street and Wall Street alike, an Internet analyst told CNBC.
Though Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is not promoting Black Friday savings this year, other retailers are advertising their Apple products to lure in shoppers — and boosting Apples brand in the process, Gene Munster, managing director and senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, told CNBC.
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPads were top sellers in stores and online at Target, the company said in a release, saying that on average, Target sold an iPad every second throughout the day on Thanksgiving. Apple Watch particularly enticed in-store shoppers, Target said.
Them Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) not doing their own Black Friday sale is perhaps going to hurt their holiday income a bit, Gurman said. But I think its worth it because theyve really done a good job outsourcing to retailers. So their direct sales might go down a little bit, but these sales through Best Buy and the third party resellers might go up a bit and it will balance out, or even put Apple in the green a bit. So I think overall it is a solid strategy.
We ultimately believe that an uptick in sales/interest in the Apple Watch, heading into the holiday season, will have positive implications for Apple, Ives wrote. We continue to view the Apple Watch as a potential door opener for wearable technology across the board, as this next paradigm shift is likely set to take place across the consumer/enterprise landscape.
Black Friday was confirmed as the biggest online shopping day of the year in the UK for the first time in 2014 – with consumers parting with a whopping £810m far exceeding the predicted spend of £363m.
Blake Skidmore said hes glad his grandfather, Mike Langenbach, still invites him to the family Apple Cup tailgates even though the grandson chose to attend WSU.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), designs, manufactures, and markets mobile communication and media devices, personal computers, and portable digital music players to consumers, small and mid-sized businesses, education, and enterprise and government customers in the Americas, Europe, Greater China, Japan, and Rest of Asia Pacific.
Shares of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), dropped -0.91% to $117.81, during its last trading session.
