Google Makes Four Predictions About Black Friday Shoppers

Thanksgiving weekend is here, and it kickstarts a holiday shopping season in which consumers are expected to spend a hefty $655.8 billion.

And while massive amounts of store foot traffic is nothing new, the way consumers search and shop on their mobile devices is a relatively new phenomenon. In fact, 76% of people who search for nearby products on their smartphones end up visiting brick-and-mortar businesses within a day.

The folks at Think With Google have crunched the numbers to see if there is any interesting correlations between mobile searches and location data. Their findings are below, and it may be interesting to compare their predictions to your own family’s activities this weekend.

Google’s Predictions

1. Even though foot traffic peaks at 6pm on Thanksgiving day to kick off early Black Friday deals, the shopping actually starts much earlier. Mobile searches happen throughout the day for deals, and 59% of them happen before stores even open.

2. On Black Friday itself, foot traffic peaks between 12pm and 4pm, but mobile searches remain very constant throughout the day. Peak time for mobile searches is at 8pm, which seems a little counterintuitive.

3. New Englanders are the most hardcore Black Friday shoppers. By 10am on Black Friday, more than one-quarter of New England shoppers have already visited a store. The rest of the country lags behind by about an hour.

4. Women buy early and often, and men wait until the last minute. During the whole holiday season, women buy twice as much as men. It’s only the week before Christmas that men are more likely to complete holiday purchases.