In every retail shopping event, there are winners and there are losers. One research firm thinks that this Black Friday will see winners in the big-box and dollar-store retailers.
As noted by Forbes, though the conventional wisdom may be that online shopping dominates Black Friday, Foursquare’s location Intelligence says that more than 90 percent of commerce still happens in brick-and-mortar locations. The firm has said that its own app tracks and makes determinations about where the foot traffic has been and where it may be headed. Thus, this year’s Black Friday traffic will drop by roughly 3.5 percent from last year. But, Forbes reported, Black Friday is now only the third most popular shopping day of the year.
Among the retail categories that could see rising traffic, the firm stated, big stores are gaining ground and could see traffic boosts of 5 percent this year. Big Lots will see the biggest gain in traffic, Foursquare predicted. Moving toward the Christmas season, Dollar Tree will see gains too. For Black Friday, notable laggards could include department stores, which have been losing some marquee name products and had already seen 7 percent declines in traffic through the months of September and October of this year. But Foursquare said that department stores could see a recovery later in the season, to the benefit of Marshall’s and Dillards, among others.
