Cyber Monday is still expected to be the year’s biggest online shopping day, driving a record $12 billion in spend and growing 5.4% year on year
Americans spent nearly $10 billion shopping online during Black Friday, a a new record, snapping up TVs, smart watches, Barbie dolls and more as the big post-Thanksgiving shopping day increasingly moves away from malls.
Discounts lured consumers to spend $9.8 billion online according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks e-commerce and mobile shopping. That’s up 7.5% year-on-year, it said Saturday.
The day’s top 10 best-selling products also included Bluetooth headphones, Mini Brands toys, cordless and robot vacuums, cookware sets, skincare products and coffee makers, Adobe said.
“The strong online sales momentum for Black Friday this year further emphasizes the staying power the major holiday shopping days continue to have,” Adobe Analytics analyst Vivek Pandya said.
Adobe Analytics said it expects Cyber Monday to remain theseason’s and year’sbiggest online shopping dayat $12 billion, up 6.1% year-on-year.Y.
Black Friday mall shopping has lost some of its luster in recent years, with holiday gift buying and bargain hunting increasingly happening online, where deals and discounts have been swirling for the past few days.
Earlier Friday, Adobe Analytics said that U.S. shoppers spent an all-time high of $5.6 billion shopping online on Thanksgiving Day, up 5.5% from last year’s Thanksgiving. It was also nearly double what consumers spent in 2017, highlighting the shift to online spending, the company said.
This holiday shopping season is being closely watched for signs of recession. One recent holiday spending prediction called for an increase between 3% to 5% this year, compared with a 5.5%-plus gain last year.
Earlier this week, Nordstrom Inc. (JWN) warned of “softening” consumer spending, and other retailers have sounded similarly cautious. Wall Street expectations for retailers are low, with one analyst saying recently that, apart from off-price retailers, nearly all others are “decelerating” from where they were in the summer.