Holiday shopping strong

There may be a recession going on, but it didn”™t stop thousands of shoppers from descending upon Woodbury Common Premium Outlets in Central Valley on Thanksgiving weekend, many of them coming by bus from New York City to take advantage of holiday sales.

From a traffic point of view, this year was not as bad as it has been in years past, Woodbury Police Chief Robert Kwiatkowski said, adding that online shopping is probably keeping more people off the roads.

“Two years ago, we had a 16-mile-long line of cars waiting on the Thruway to get off at Exit 16. Last year, we were down to eight miles. This year, four.  I am sure the traffic control we”™ve put into place has helped keep people and cars moving. I also think there just weren”™t that many people as in the past.”

Police had closed off Exit 131 that leads to a direct entrance into the shopping center and onto Route 32. Traffic was diverted to Exit 129, where the park-and-ride became a bus run taking shoppers to and from the mall, Kwiatkowski said.  “We also used the parking lot at Museum Village for buses to bring people to and from the shopping area. It was the only way to keep the Thruway moving. I think drivers felt better just knowing they weren”™t standing still, although we had them looping around rather than having traffic backed up for hours.”

 

The National Retail Federation found in a survey conducted by BIGresearch that 195 million shoppers visited stores and websites over Black Friday weekend, up from 172 million last year. The average spending over the weekend dropped from $372.57 a year ago to $343.31 per person. Total spending reached an estimated $41.2 billion.

 

Kwiatkowski said after 4 a.m. Friday, traffic “was pretty much smooth sailing” the rest of the day.
“I think a lot of people are growing tired of the Black Friday craze…and the Internet is making it a lot easier to shop without all the stress.”

The police chief”™s thoughts were reflected by statistics gathered by California-based Coremetrics in its second annual Cyber Monday Benchmark Report.

Consumers spent more per online order ”“ $180.03 versus $170.19 ”“ compared with Black Friday”™s online sales. In a year-over-year comparison with last year”™s Cyber Monday, the average dollar amount spent per online order rose 38.2 percent.

The most visited retail website was Amazon. Walmart followed in second place, according to Experian Hitwise, with Target and BestBuy in third and fourth places.

Apparel and jewelry retailers reported the biggest jumps in the average dollar amount consumers spent per online order, up 26.4 percent and 14.3 percent respectively, according to Coremetrics.

Department stores reported a 33 percent rise in new consumers to their sites. However, average order value was down nearly 10 percent.