The True Black Friday Experience Just Isn’t Available Online

Black Friday is almost here, and plenty of shoppers will opt for swiping and tapping on their phones instead of bumping and elbowing their way through the mall.

But the changing nature of this American-invented shopping holiday should hardly be taken as a signal that physical stores don’t matter. While consumers say they plan to spend more online than in stores, the data suggests that is not actually what will happen. The National Retail Federation estimates that holiday retail sales this year will total between $727.9 billion and $730.7 billion, and of that haul, only about 23% — between $162.6 billion and $166.9 billion — will be composed of online and other non-store sales.1