PHILADELPHIA. There seems to be two types of holiday shoppers these days: those who like hitting the pavement looking for potential gifts and those who shop online.
Marketing gimmicks like today’s “Cyber Monday” get shoppers to increase their online buying, but has yet to pass actually going to the mall or downtown, according to statistics. But some like Jeff Kelly now favor mouse clicks to store clerks.
“It’s so much easier and often, there’s free shipping anyway,” Kelly said, as he and his wife, Amiee and their two children took in the temporary Christmas Village shopping plaza at Dilworth Plaza in Center City.
Black Friday still dwarfs anything Cyber Monday gives to retailers, with this year’s in-store sales hitting about $10.6 billion, according to an early estimate by ShopperTrak, which follows retail sales.
Online sales on Black Friday made up about $600 million of that total, according to another retail tracker, comScore.
Those estimates, however, indicate that online shopping is growing at a faster pace than the traditional method of going to the stores. Growth in online sales was double-digit compared to only a slight overall increase.
Temple University student Sarah Jagiela remains a holdout.
“I like the atmosphere of actual shopping, browsing,” Jagiela said.
