Wii leads the way on healthy Black Friday

Update 2:03 p.m. PST: Added NPD and Apple paragraphs.

Black Friday proved to be a relatively bright light in an economy largely characterized by dark, gloomy reports.

Overall, retail sales for the day after Thanksgiving were up 3 percent from the same day in 2007, with preliminary estimates putting total sales in the U.S. at $10.6 billion, according to Shoppertrak RCT. (Shoppertrak derives its retail benchmark from a wide range of categories, including consumer electronics, sporting goods, apparel, and general merchandise.)

On Black Friday, the Wii had the right touch.

(Credit: GameSpot)

Web shopping saw an even larger percentage gain for the day, with traffic up 11 percent year over year, per comparison shopping site PriceGrabber.com.

Taking the crown as the top product of the day was the Nintendo Wii, according to both PriceGrabber and online commerce giant eBay, which pulled data from its namesake site and other eBay-owned sites including PayPal and Shopping.com.

The Wii game console was the most searched-for product on eBay, followed by the Wii Fit companion product. Consumers snatched up 3,171 Wiis over eBay, at an average selling price of $349, followed by the Wii Fit, with 1,059 sold at an average selling price of $140.

Market watchers pointed out that, in the dire economy of 2008, online shoppers and consumers generally were likely motivated by widespread discounting by anxious sellers.

"Consumers are responding to aggressive promotions and price drops on popular electronics," Ron LaPierre, president of PriceGrabber, said in a statement.

The NPD Group offered a similar assessment from the retail front lines on Friday:

The overall initial conclusion for Black Friday is that sales and traffic were strong, likely on par with prior years. Consumers were drawn by the appearance of bargains and low prices and electronics are increasingly the primary driver of consumers' interest in Black Friday shopping.

According to PriceGrabber, the following were the most popular products on Black Friday--nine of the 10 are gadgets, with the odd product out being one styling of the popular Ugg boots:

• Nintendo Wii console
• Ugg Australia "classic short" boot
• Sony BDP-S350 1080p Blu-ray disc player
• Samsung LN52A650 52" LCD TV
• Nintendo Wii Fit
• Panasonic TH-42PX80U 42" plasma TV
• Sennheiser HD 555 headphones
• Canon EOS Rebel XSi Black SLR digital camera kit
• Acer Aspire One AOA110-1295 notebook PC
• Canon PowerShot A590 IS black digital camera

The consumer electronics category that saw the largest gains from Black Friday 2007 was Blu-ray/HD-DVD players, up 147 percent, according to PriceGrabber. Headphones were up 103 percent. (By comparison, women's sleep and lounge wear was up 415 percent, women's boots were up 203 percent, and watches were up 202 percent.)

On eBay's Shopping.com, a GPS sold every 9 minutes and an MP3 player every 11 minutes. On eBay proper, the hottest products in those categories were the Garmin Nuvi GPS and the iPod Touch music player.

Apple seemed to have had a good Black Friday. Fortune's Apple 2.0 blog reported Sunday that on Amazon.com, 10 of the 25 bestselling electronics products (including three of the top 10) were Apple products, led by the iPod Touch. The Fortune report also said that by Sunday the iPod Touch had fallen to No. 4, with Amazon's own Kindle moving into first.

Despite the good returns from Black Friday, no one seemed eager to predict continued economic cheer through the rest of the holiday season.

"While this is an encouraging start for retailers, there's no guarantee these deep discounts will continue after Black Friday weekend, which could slow spending," Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak, said in a statement. "Additionally, consumers have just 27 days to shop this year as opposed to 32 in 2007, which may catch some procrastinating consumers off guard, leading to lower sales levels."

[BlitzBoy1120]

I still think this year's deals weren't "amazing". They were just lower prices on already low priced items. Another thing is that there weren't as many doorbuster deals this year as many as last year which was a big disappointment.

[ducttape36]

i agree, although i jsut moved into a new apartment so i found some pretty good deals on home furniture. but nothing spectacular and i didnt buy one electronic item.

[scottfillmer]

wii translates to entertainment at home instead of going out... after going to a movie this past weekend I would much rather stay at home and play a game than put myself through that again, I would even consider buying both the wii and then the xbox just so I could get movies from nexflix over going back to the theater

[angus122]

So, interesting how just about every media outlet in the country announced it was an utter disappointment and a disaster for retailers before it even happened, isn't it? Why are they hyping this econmic situation to seem worse than it already is - ...?

[jessicas89]

"Bright light"? A man was TRAMPELLED to death by a bunch of greedy idiots on their way to still overpriced merchandise. Two more people got shot at a Toys R Us. I wouldn't call this a bright light but rather a very dark day for humanity.

And on a "lighter" note, the deals out there were mostly total junk, still overpriced and rarely anything better than what one can find during any day of the year if one just takes a few minutes searching on sites like Techbargains or Slickdeals.

[thelemurking]

2 guys in a Mexican gang go after each other because their ghetto ho girlfriends have some sort of rivalry that had nothing to do with shopping really shouldn't reflect in any way shape or form on the whole Black Friday shopping frenzy. That could have easily happened any day of the week any month of the year. And it is really going to make the world any less bright when two gang bangers kill each other? Good riddance I might add!

As for the Wal Mart employee! I completely agree with your point, but let's not try to sugar over the shootings. It was more gang related than OMG You got the last Barbie Castle playset and my daughter wants it more than your daughter crap.

[ruminator]

THe trampolining is just the first step. The next step is for unemployed "shoppers" to roll over, feign injuries from bargain hunting stampedes and sue the cash-strapped stores for every penny they don't have. The God dern lawyers will have a field day and the doctors will be there to back up every concocted injury. God bless America, God help us.

[panda630]

i work at best buy, and we were expecting the wii to sell out but it did not we had 130 units for black friday and by the end of the day we still had about 80 units left

[l3it3r]

I bought the 32" BRAVIA ($499), 2 copies of Transformers on BD ($9 each(, and SOCOM for PS3 w/headset (Wasn't on sale-still $60, I just figured I toss that in.. ) at bestbuy. was a pretty good deal (Savings on the TV and the BDs paid for SOCOM basically.) Also ordered a few things off Amazon, including the Nyko guitar hero / rock band compatible guitar for PS3. Ordered it on Friday and got it the NEXT DAY!! It was only $7.

[Penguinisto]

Damn, people - it's spelled "trampled".

/P

[justdenny]

I kind of liked imagining the "trampolining" effect...unemployed shoppers flying through the air toward the next department, leading the blind masses......guns blazing...wait...mixed metaphors

[compudoc318]

the most disgusting part of this article is that people are still wearing ugg boots!!!! Those things and crocks should be illegal....lol.

[Waam]

Got my ps3 at Best Buy this weekend with!

[CEB1970]

Shoppertrak? Bright spot?

Are you freakin kidding me? Do some research!!! This company has CONSISTENTLY overestimated shopping volume for years. They were WAY WAY WAY off last year. WILDLY off. Their methodology is totally flawed: they have people at malls count the amount of foot traffic, and then they estimate based on that.

Mark my words: this "bright spot" will prove to be nothing of the sort when the real numbers come out.

Get ready for Grinchmas.

[someguynamedbob]

isn't there the economy crisis or somthin saying that NOBODY has got money. then how are we still buying stuff?

[cnet-og]

"isn't there the economy crisis or somthin saying that NOBODY has got money. then how are we still buying stuff?"

The same way we Americans have done for 20+yrs... Credit cards... and that mentality is largely to blame for the crisis we're seeing today.

[AppleSuxLeo]

And in related news...More Toyota Carollas were sold than BMW`s.
Did you know the 360 outsold the PS3 by 3 to 1 ?

[cyruszuo]

MS and Sony are taking this approach to help fuel the anti-Wii sentiments of the 17-24 year-old gamer, traditionally...most of what used to be the 'gamer market.' The comments by MS are pure marketing and intentional, not because they are ignoring the competition, but because they are trying to fuel hate of the competition through dismissal. Unfortunately, like most political manuevers, it really speaks best to their base (17-24) that already has or would buy either a 360 or PS3. The audience they are aiming for (adults) are buying Wiis by the millions and not paying much attention to the fanboy haters.

[cheap345]

some dvds are hot . i have bought some cheapest dvds on black friday online .

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