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Americans spent more money over the Thanksgiving weekend online than they did in stores, further exacerbating fears that brick-and-mortar retailers can’t rely on Black Friday sales anymore.
For the second year in a row e-commerce grabbed customers from physical stores, according to a National Retail Federation survey, which shows 109 million people shopped online this year while only 99 million went to stores, the Wall Street Journal reports. Black Friday mall foot traffic fell almost 11% from last year’s levels while in-store sales tumbled more than 10%.
But that doesn’t mean people are spending less—online shopping picked up the slack, with mobile sales breaking records this year and overall e-commerce growing almost 18% from last year to reach $5.27B. [WSJ]
