Brean Capital Says 'Thanksgiving Sales Started Off With a Bang, Ended With A Whimper'

Liz Pierce of Brean Capital estimates that based on preliminary data from ShopperTrak, the combined sales for the two-day period of Thanksgiving and Black Friday were 0.5 percent lower than a year ago.

"The Holiday 2014 season is off to a somewhat muted start, which we attribute to Black Friday sales starting in late October, thereby taking some of the luster away from the weekend," Pierce wrote in a note on Monday. "In our opinion, while Black Friday creep had a positive impact on sales during the first part of the weekend, consistent with the past couple of years, we believe it cannibalized sales on both Saturday and Sunday."

Consumers are still "event and promotionally driven" while conversion is "strongly tied" to compelling deals and door busters, according to Pierce.

Traffic was very strong on Thanksgiving evening at shopping malls as well as big box and discount retailers where customers were eager to take advantage of compelling door busters, according to Pierce. The analyst adds that shoppers were "definitely in the buying mood" on Thursday evening which "took a bite" out of Friday morning foot traffic.

Finally, Pierce states that the 2014 holiday season will be a "mobile Holiday" as consumers used mobile devices to a "greater extent." In fact, the analyst calculates that website traffic on mobile devices rose to 45 percent from 22 percent last year. However, the analyst remains concerned that logistical challenges will be a "gating factor" to e-commerce sales just as they were a year ago.