Black Friday shoppers wait to enter the Coach store at Opry Mills Mall in Nashville, Tennessee, on November 25, 2022.
Seth Messenger | AFP | beautiful pictures
Consumers spent $9.12 billion shopping online during this year’s Black Friday, according to Adobe, which tracks sales on retailers’ websites.
Adobe says total online sales the day after Thanksgiving grew 2.3% year-over-year, and electronics was a major contributor, as online sales grew 221%. compared to the one-day average in October, Adobe said. Toys were another popular category for shoppers, up 285%, as was exercise equipment, up 218%.
Many consumers accept flexible payment plans on Black Friday as they continue to grapple with high prices and inflation. Buy Now Pay Later increased 78% from the previous week, starting November 19, and Buy Now Postpaid revenue increased 81% during the same period.
Some of this year’s hottest items include game consoles, drones, Apple MacBooks, Dyson products and toys like Fortnite, Roblox, Bluey, Funko Pop! and Disney Encanto, according to the report.
Black Friday shoppers also broke records for mobile orders, as 48% of online sales were made on smartphones, up from 44% last year.
Record spending appeared heel of a powerful Thanksgiving shopping day, in which consumers spent an all-time high of $5.29 billion online, up 2.9% year over year. Typically, shoppers spend between $2 billion and $3 billion online in a single day, according to Adobe.
For retailers, these numbers could be a promising indicator in the coming weeks. Early holiday forecasts have been muted, and Goals, Macy’s, northern and other retailers reported sluggish sales in late October and early November. Consumer sentiment also weakened in the past month as inflation hovered near a four-decade high.
As Adobe reports, even though Black Friday is over, e-commerce activity will remain strong through the weekend. Adobe expects consumers to spend $4.52 billion on Saturday and $4.99 billion on Sunday, ahead of the biggest online shopping day of the year, Cyber Monday.
According to Adobe, this year, Cyber Monday is expected to drive spending by $11.2 billion, up 5.1% year-over-year.
