By all accounts, the annual Black Friday holiday shopping weekend – more like holiday shopping week, if you ask me – was nothing short of a record setter. The five-day period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday will, for now, stand as the most active of all time, from a consumer spending standpoint here in the U.S., especially online.

According to Adobe Analytics, combined consumer spending online for Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday totaled $30.2 billion this year – an 8.6 percent increase over the $27.8 billion spent last year on the same days. Add in online sales data for the rest of the weekend, including Small Business Saturday, and online total sales jump to $41.1 billion for the entire long weekend. To put that into even greater perspective, consumers were spending about $5.7 million per minute online throughout the entire five-day weekend.

2024 Online Spending by Day (via Adobe Analytics)

• • Thanksgiving: $6.1 billion
  • Black Friday: $10.8 billion
  • Small Business Saturday: $5.3 billion
  • Sunday: $5.6 billion
  • Cyber Monday: $13.3 billion

Diving deeper into the online numbers, Adobe’s data shows that more consumers than ever are using their mobile phones to make purchases this year. Total online spend since the start of November is up over $131.5 billion. Mobile purchases account for nearly $70 billion, or slightly above 53 percent, according to Adobe – up from 51 percent last year and 47 percent in 2022.

While toys and clothing were among the most popular items sold during the weekend, data also pointed to quite a few items within our industry’s scope as well, including espresso machines, bedding and linens, TVs (of course), bluetooth headphones, computers and laptops, and other appliances. In fact, according to Adobe, appliance sales on Black Friday were up 476 percent compared to an average day this year, and electronics sales were up 334 percent.

The strong performance in the face of still-challenging economic circumstances and inflation might leave some to scratch their heads and wonder both why and how this could be the case. But a closer look shows that consumers, where possible, are relying on those alternate payment methods and their existing lines of credit to help spread out the financial burden of their holiday tickets. As credit card debt continues to surge, Adobe’s data shows that consumers are leaning more heavily this year on things like ‘buy now, pay later’ services. From the November 1 – December 2, BNPL spending has totaled $9.4 billion. Adobe estimates that the total for the entire holiday period (Nov 1 through the end of the year) will hit $18.5 billion, an 11.4 percent increase over last year.

In-Store Data Drags

To be certain, as well as things have been going online, the weekend did leave something to be desired for the in-store experience. According to data from MasterCard’s SpendingPulse tool, while online retail sales were up 14.6 percent on Black Friday compared to last year, in-store sales increased a more modest 0.7 percent. Further, data from Afterpay showed that online carts were able to drive average ticket prices that were more than twice as large as in-store carts.

Elsewhere, data from RetailNext showed that store traffic was down 3.2 percent across the country, compared to last year. In particular, traffic in the Midwest was down 7 percent and 3.5 percent in the South.

How is your business doing this holiday shopping season? Drop us a line at pr@nmg.org and let us know!