Management

Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday: By the Numbers [#Infographic]

As shoppers spread purchases through multiple channels, the Thanksgiving shopping holiday remains as popular as ever.

Bob Keaveney

Bob is the managing editor of BizTech magazine.

Juliet Van Wagenen

Juliet is the senior web editor for StateTech and HealthTech magazines. In her six years as a journalist she has covered everything from aerospace to indie music reviews — but she is unfailingly partial to covering technology.

As American as apple pie, the retail holiday around Thanksgiving weekend is a long-standing tradition. But the holiday is changing in more ways than one, kicked off by the ways that mobile phones and online shopping have transformed consumer demands and expectations — not to mention that tablets, point-of-sale systems, mobile payments and other pieces of technology have revolutionized the way that retailers do business.

"The lines are blurring between digital and physical shopping," Katherine Cullen, director of retail and consumer insights for the National Retail Federation’s research team, told BizTech in a recent interview. "People today shop across multiple channels and in multiple ways. They just want to be able to buy what they want, when they want and, increasingly, at the price they want to pay."

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This has turned the solitary Black Friday shopping holiday into a five-day retail extravaganza, Cullen notes. But how much are consumers really spending from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday? And in what channel are they putting their dollars to work?

Check out our infographic below to learn how, when and where consumers are moving the needle on sales during the Thanksgiving shopping holiday.