Discount and specialty retailers like TJ Maxx and Sephora won Black Friday, leaving big box chains in the shade

• Most stores saw foot traffic soar this Black Friday versus 2020 when customers shopped from home.
• But only a few – TJ Maxx, Ross, Sephora – saw visits jump from 2019 levels.

Shoppers flocked to off-price and specialty stores for deals this Black Friday.

According to foot traffic analysts Placer.ai, though most stores saw an uptick in visits on Black Friday this year versus 2020 – when the pandemic kept more shoppers at home – only a select few saw a jump from 2019 levels.

These retailers included off-price stores such as TJ Maxx, Ross, and HomeGoods, and specialty stores such as Ulta and Sephora.

"Department stores, athleticwear, and apparel brands all had strong, broad-based, year-on-year traffic growth on Black Friday, but continue to be the most notable laggards compared to 2019," a group of BMO analysts wrote in a note to clients early Monday, commenting on the data.

As of early Friday morning, anecdotal accounts from customers and workers indicated that once-typical Black Friday lines and crowds at major retailers such as Target, Walmart, and Best Buy, were nonexistent at some locations.

Videos and photos shared on Twitter early Friday showed lines that were 20 to 30 people deep outside these stores. Four shoppers told Insider they were able to get in and out of stores quickly; in one case, in as little as 10 minutes.

Insider's Mary Meisenzahl encountered similar scenes during her trip to a Walmart store in Rochester, New York on Black Friday. She found that the store was uncharacteristically empty for this busy shopping day. Meanwhile, she found large crowds in visits to nearby Bath and Body Works and Ulta stores.

GlobalData Retail analyst Neil Saunders told Meisenzahl that this difference in crowds may be down to the fact that most big box stores have shifted many of their sales online, which makes an in-store visit less worthwhile for the customer.

Meanwhile at specialty stores "there seem to be some very good discounts around and they're limited time," he said, which encourages shoppers to pitch up on the day.

Still, sales online didn't prosper as much as expected this Black Friday. According to Adobe, online retail sales were down this year versus the year before and flat over Thanksgiving Day. Salesforce reported a 5% year-on-year jump in sales on Black Friday and a 1% increase on Thanksgiving.

Though fewer discounts may have turned off some shoppers, data shows that many were choosing to shop earlier in the season, likely fearing that supply chain-induced delays and shortages would impact the prime shopping days.

According to Adobe, daily spending of more than $3 billion was recorded on 22 days in November. In the same month in 2020, only nine days surpassed the $3 billion mark. Overall, consumers spent $109.8 billion online through November, a 11.9% increase from 2020.

"Online sales on big shopping days like Thanksgiving and Black Friday are decreasing for the first time in history, and it is beginning to smooth out the shape of the overall season," Taylor Schreiner director at Adobe Digital Insights said in a statement Monday.

"What we know as Cyber Week is starting to look more like Cyber Month," she said.