Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday: What Really Happened?

Dan Tynan
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Heat map of #BlackFriday (yellow) and #CyberMonday (green) tweets during a 12-hour period. (Source: CartoDB)

Our annual exercise in frenzied consumerism has finally drawn to a close, and now the numbers are in.

What did we learn from Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

As expected, Walmart ruled the retail roost on Thursday and Friday, while Amazon dominated online sales on Monday. But a shift is clearly in the works, as more people are saving themselves time and effort — and avoiding potential riots — by shopping online instead of hitting the stores. And even more of them are shopping via mobile devices.

Here’s what the numbers have to say.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday by the Numbers

Number of people who shopped in stores over the Thanksgiving weekend: 102 million

Number who shopped online: 103 million

Odds that shoppers purchased computers or consumer electronics: 1 in 3

(Source: National Retail Federation)

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Percent of shoppers who bought something directly from a mobile device: 36

Odds that a mobile purchase was made via an iPhone or iPad: 4 out of 5

(Source: Custora)

No. of background checks for gun owners on Black Friday: 185,345

(Source: FBI)

No. of Black Friday 2015 "Mall Brawl" compilations on YouTube: 2,740

(Source: YouTube)

State where you were most likely to get into a mall brawl on Black Friday in 2015: Arkansas

(Source: Estately)

Amount spent online on Cyber Monday 2015: $3.1 billion

Amount spent online on Cyber Monday 2014: $2.6 billion

(Source: ComScore)

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Odds that an item sold on Cyber Monday came from Amazon: 1 in 3

Odds that an item sold on Cyber Monday came from Walmart: 1 in 30

(Source: Slice Intelligence)

Best-selling item at Walmart on Black Friday: Men’s Wrangler Jeans

(Source: Infoscout)

Best-selling item at Target on Black Friday: Apple iPad

(Source: Forbes)

Walmart annual revenue, in billions of dollars: 486

(Source: Walmart)

Where Walmart would rank among the world’s nations in gross domestic product: 28th

(Source: World Bank)

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(Photo: Jobs With Justice)

No. of Walmart employees signed up for the “Fast for $15” protest, hoping to get the company to raise its minimum hourly wage to $15: 1,400

(Source: Think Progress)

Now read this:

Dan Tynan would rather tweet than shop.