An Adobe Analytics report shows that U.S. consumers have spent a record $9.12 billion shopping this Black Friday the traditional first day of the Christmas shopping season.
According to Adobbe Inc’s data and insight arm, online shopping on Black Friday increased by 2.3%. The report provides the most comprehensive view into U.S. e-commerce by analyzing commerce transactions online.
Adobe’s analysis covers over 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs, and 18 product categories. It also looks at over 85% of the top 100 internet retailers in the United States.
In a news release, Patrick Brown, vice president of growth marketing and insights at Adobe said “the shape of the holiday season will look different this year”. Although Black Friday marks the beginning of the Christmas Shopping season, retailers began bargains as early as the second week of October.
“With early discounting in October pulling up spend that would have occurred around Cyber Week,” said Patrick Brown, vice president of growth marketing and insights at Adobe. “Even though we expect to see single-digit growth online this season, it is notable that consumers have already spent over $590 billion online this year at 8.9% growth, highlighting the resiliency of e-commerce demand.”
Adobe expects U.S. online holiday sales to hit $209.7 billion from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, representing 2.5% growth year-over-year (YoY). Cyber Monday is expected to remain the season’s and year’s biggest shopping day, driving a record $11.2 billion in spending, increasing 5.1% YoY.
Black Friday online sales are projected to modestly grow by just 1% YoY.
An estimated 166.3 million people are planning to shop from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday this year, according to the annual survey released today by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics. This figure is almost 8 million more people than last year and is the highest estimate since NRF began tracking this data in 2017.
“While there is much speculation about inflation’s impact on consumer behavior, our data tells us that this Thanksgiving holiday weekend will see robust store traffic with a record number of shoppers taking advantage of value pricing,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. “We are optimistic that retail sales will remain strong in the weeks ahead, and retailers are ready to meet consumers however they want to shop with great products at prices they want to pay.”
Despite inflation, the biggest discounts are expected to hit between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.
According to Adobe, Thanksgiving Day was the best day to shop for electronics, while Black Friday will have the best deals for televisions. On Nov. 26, shoppers will see the biggest discounts for toys.
Adobe expects to see the best deals for apparel and sporting goods on Nov. 27. Those looking to buy a computer or furniture should shop on Cyber Monday.
Appliances will see top discounts on Dec. 1, according to Adobe.
