Black Friday 2010 Shopping Trends

Black Friday is typically the best shopping day for special deals, and this year's edition won't be an exception. Top retail stores like Walmart and Target have already announced huge discounts for next week's Thanksgiving weekend. But what are the top shopping trends for Black Friday 2010? Which item is the most highly sought? Below is an empirical analysis of the early shopping trends for Black Friday as well as for the rest of the holiday season.

For this analysis, I used search data made available by Google Insights. According to Insights, web searches for special Black Friday deals in the past month have been dominated by TV sets. A close inspection of the search data finds LCD TVs to be the most searched items for potential Black Friday shoppers, followed by plasmas and 3D TVs. The most popular TV brands for bargain hunters are Samsung, Vizio, Sony, LG, and Panasonic.

The second most searched item for Black Friday shoppers is tablet computer. My analysis of Google trends data finds the iPad to be overwhelmingly the most popular tablet computer for Black Friday shopping. Other tablet PCs such as Samsung Galaxy Tab don't seem to generate as much interest from discount shoppers. In short, Apple could see big sales of its iPad through the holiday shopping season. Other top shopping items for Black Friday 2010 include cameras, laptops, video games, toys, and appliances.

What can we take from the early Black Friday shopping trends? Consumers are looking for deals on big-ticket items like TVs and computers. This could be very good news for retailers, as all signs are pointing to a huge Black Friday and a strong holiday shopping season. Happy Black Friday 2010 and remember to shop responsibly.

Google search trends data are freely available at the Google Insights website. The analysis is based on my own interpretation of the search data.