The Numbers Are In: Black Friday Sales Broke An All-Time Record This Year

Today is Cyber Monday, capping off a long weekend of holiday shopping deals that began in earnest on Thanksgiving. Even though plenty of folks across the U.S. and around the world will be hunting for bargains today, early numbers are already in regarding retail sales.

A digital departure

If you actually went to a brick-and-mortar store on Black Friday, you probably noticed something was missing: the crowds. The post-Thanksgiving shopping rush once translated to mobs of consumers rushing into Walmart, Best Buy, and a host of other stores before sunup to nab the advertised doorbuster deals.

But just because the foot traffic is down doesn’t mean cost-conscious shoppers aren’t spending big bucks on Black Friday. In fact, estimates from Adobe Analytics determined that U.S. consumers spent just a hair under $10 billion on Friday — an all-time record that represented a 7.5% increase over last year and was roughly $200 million higher than predictions.

Salesforce used a different set of data and determined that Black Friday sales actually topped $16 billion.

Black Friday spending added to the approximately $5.6 billion spent on Thanksgiving, which itself was about 5.5% higher than 2022 totals.

Belt-tightening trends

With the continued impact of inflation translating to budgets that are stretched to their limit, it’s no surprise that many shoppers have spent the weekend cashing in on discounts wherever they could find them.

Here’s what analysts found:

• Nearly four-fifths of all browsing and buying originated on smartphones.
• More than 80% of orders included standard shipping instead of more expensive expedited options.
• Use of “buy now, pay later” options increased 72% over last year.

After all is said and done, Salesforce’s estimates suggest global sales between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday could top $53 billion.

Chris Agee November 27th, 2023

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