In the continuing trend of the growing online shopping market-share, online shoppers (109 million) outpaced in-store shoppers (99 million) on Black Friday this year. Some of these shoppers actually did both on the same day, but the data shows a significant increase in online shopping activity from last year (2015: 103 million online and 102 million in-store). Actual expenditures online also surged ahead to $3.34 billion – a 21.6% increase over last year. And this does not include the online shopping high point of Cyber Monday that is happening today.
As we have discussed in previous posts, this trend – if it continues – will lead to a significant change in the number, location, and design of bricks-and-mortar stores. A large change to the organization of cities and the ways we live in them.