Meta Data: Online Killed Black Friday Sales

It was a bleak Friday after all for the consumer technology industry. Post Thanksgiving Day spending on Nov. 28 fell 8.4% to $2.03 billion at retail stores compared to the same day a year ago, the NPD Group said Tuesday. It was also the first electronics spending slump in Black Friday's history.

Maybe it was the food coma. Or perhaps it was the prevalence of online shopping deals. NPD has yet to release its sales data from Cyber Monday, but comScore said online spending on consumer electronics during the week of Dec. 1 increased 24% compared with the corresponding period in 2007. Overall spending increased 9% to $3.7 billion at online retailers. (See "Cyber Monday's Electronics Bonanza.")

And who wouldn't want to take their dollars online? Many Web storefronts were promoting free shipping, and there is no threat of being trampled to death by a turkey-fueled mob.

"Clearly there was--during Black Friday week--some shifting from people buying in brick-and-mortar to online," says NPD analyst Stephen Baker. "Black Friday deals were much more available online than they ever were before."

Baker also notes that there was a shift in how retailers approached Black Friday. For instance, there were no "blowout sales." Retailers figured that if consumers decided they weren't going to spend, bigger discounts likely wouldn't entice them. "All [sales] do is give people who were going to shop anyway a bigger discount," Baker says.

NPD noted, however, that sales of LCD TVs larger than 30 inches and notebook PCs rose 18% and 19%, respectively, compared with Black Friday last year. GPS units and digital picture frames also sold well.

Baker says he was most disappointed by poor sales of cameras and camcorders, but notes that many consumers are no longer compelled to upgrade their electronics.