Black Friday Tops the List of Busiest Shopping Days of 2018

People aren’t exactly gaga over Christmas, but instead it is Black Friday.

A new report from retail tracking firm ShopperTrak says Nov. 23 will be the busiest day for shoppers and retailers alike, as it kicks off the holiday season.

The company’s historical traffic data indicates that the Sunday before Thanksgiving sets the shopping activity in motion throughout Black Friday weekend.

“As our 2017 Black Friday Report noted, last year’s Black Friday weekend backed up our prediction from the previous year that 2016 would signal a year-over-year shopper visitor improvement. There’s no evidence that 2018 will be any different as we expect the upward trend to continue. In fact, Black Friday sees nearly one and a half times more shopper traffic than the second busiest day, Super Saturday, so it is no surprise that it tops our list again this year.” – Brian Field, Senior Director of Retail Consulting Practice, ShopperTrak

Aside from Black Friday, the following dates account for nearly 45% of all shopper traffic for this year’s holiday season:

• Dec. 22 – Super Saturday
• Dec. 15 – The third Saturday in December
• Dec. 23 – The Sunday before Christmas
• Nov. 24 – The Saturday after Thanksgiving
• Dec. 8 – The second Saturday in December
• Dec. 21 – The Friday before Christmas
• Dec. 26 – The day after Christmas
• Dec. 1 – The first Saturday in December
• Dec. 29 – The Saturday after Christmas

Retailers, prepare for profitable weekends

Expect all Saturdays in December, especially the one before Christmas, to be the busiest, says ShopperTrak, as shoppers scramble for last-minute presents.

Also, the hours between 2 pm and 4 pm during the weekends will see shoppers racing to get the hottest items first.

ShopperTrak said it’s important that the scheduling of retailers not only aligns with the busiest days, but also “properly matches with these afternoon hours.”

How are you preparing for the busiest shopping day of the year? Let us know in the comments below or over in our Facebook Group.

Dave Furness

Dave is a Co-Founder of eSeller365. For over 10 years he has been involved with eCommerce with a particular interest in the marketplaces and the huge opportunities available for sellers when utilizing a multi-channel strategy. After a year of being the UK’s youngest eCommerce consultant, he built an education platform called UnderstandingE that showed the world how to utilize Magento as the “Third Generation of Multi-Channel software”.

Dave has also created a YouTube channel dedicated to entrepreneurship and eCommerce as well as a podcast dedicated to mental health awareness. When Dave isn’t working his main interests include learning and playing Chess, researching the Crypto and NFT space, and trying to find the nearest beach.