• Home
  • News
  • Personal Finance
    • Savings
    • Banking
    • Mortgage
    • Retirement
    • Taxes
    • Wealth
  • Make Money
  • Budgeting
  • Burrow
  • Investing
  • Credit Cards
  • Loans

Subscribe to Updates

Get the latest finance news and updates directly to your inbox.

Top News

Mortgage rates tick higher for first time in weeks

July 10, 2025

Social Security & The Big Beautiful Bill

July 10, 2025

Millionaires Are Fleeing These 10 Countries (the First Is Now in Europe)

July 10, 2025
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Trending
  • Mortgage rates tick higher for first time in weeks
  • Social Security & The Big Beautiful Bill
  • Millionaires Are Fleeing These 10 Countries (the First Is Now in Europe)
  • These 5 ‘Free Trials’ Are Draining Your Bank Without Warning
  • Goldman Sachs Asking Junior Bankers to Confirm Loyalty
  • He Went From Customer to CEO of 16 Handles
  • Nvidia Hits Market Cap Milestone Before Apple, Microsoft
  • Trump admin resuming interest charges for nearly 8M student loan borrowers after Biden’s limbo
Thursday, July 10
Facebook Twitter Instagram
FintechoPro
Subscribe For Alerts
  • Home
  • News
  • Personal Finance
    • Savings
    • Banking
    • Mortgage
    • Retirement
    • Taxes
    • Wealth
  • Make Money
  • Budgeting
  • Burrow
  • Investing
  • Credit Cards
  • Loans
FintechoPro
Home » Black Friday in Full Force After Thanksgiving Breaks Online Sales Record
Investing

Black Friday in Full Force After Thanksgiving Breaks Online Sales Record

News RoomBy News RoomNovember 25, 20230 Views0
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Email Tumblr Telegram

This holiday season doesn’t feel like recent pandemic ones, and Black Friday is no exception. The shopping holiday is back in full force.

In the Philadelphia suburbs, shoppers were out early looking for bargains. The parking lots surrounding the Philadelphia Premium Outlet in Pottstown, Pa., was full by 9 a.m., and a line of cars waited to be waved in by parking lot attendants. 

Shoppers drove around the outdoor mall, trying to snag a spot as early birds left. One woman stood in a spot trying to hold it, but finally gave up as a car inched toward her. Some left the mall only to drop their purchases in their vehicles, then went back to the stores for more. 

Inside the mall, people lined up outside the stores, waiting to be let in by store clerks.  

Many other consumers got a head start online. In the U.S., web traffic to retailers rose 6% year over year on Thanksgiving Thursday, according to Salesforce data. Meanwhile,
Adobe
estimated that consumers spent a record $5.6 billion online on Thanksgiving Day, up 5.5% year over year and nearly double the amount that people spent online in 2017.

As of midday Friday, online sales were up 5% compared with last year, according to data from Signifyd. Signifyd provides fraud protection to e-commerce merchants.

Hot purchases included toys and electronics, such as Barbie dolls, Marvel action figures, and gaming consoles like the Play Station 5 and the Xbox Series X, according to Adobe. Other big sellers were robot vacuums, tablets, workout gear, and holiday decor.

“My expectation—and so far it looks like it’s been checking out—is that this five-day period is going to be the peak and the highlight of the season, and that it’s going to do really well,” said Melissa Minkow, director of retail strategy at CI&T.

The post-Thanksgiving sales bonanza has lost its luster in recent years. Pandemic-era supply chain snafus prompted retailers to push up their holiday deals earlier in the year. That gave consumers a head start on their shopping, but it also spread spending out across multiple seasons, diluting the impact of any single day, let alone Black Friday.

This year, retailers offered early deals again. But many Americans have settled back into their prepandemic shopping patterns, meaning they have been waiting to shop until now.

Close to three quarters, 74%, of holiday shoppers plan to make a purchase between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday this year, according to the National Retail Federation, with 72% of shoppers planning to make a purchase on Friday.

“We expect shopping patterns will look even more similar to historical holiday periods than they did last year with customers shopping activity concentrated on Black Friday week, Cyber Monday and the last two weeks of December,” said
Best Buy
CEO Corie Barry on an earnings call with investors Tuesday.

Perhaps the demand for deals isn’t that surprising, given that consumers are facing a host of macroeconomic challenges and are becoming more price sensitive.

“This year, people are looking for deals more than we have seen in previous years,” said Kelly Pedersen, U.S. retail leader at PwC.

They’ll probably find them, experts say, but warn that there won’t be blowout sales like those seen in previous years. The average Black Friday discount this year is 35%, according to a WalletHub analysis of ads from the 13 largest retailers in the U.S. Last year, the average was 37.2% and it was 40.4% in 2019, WalletHub found. A lack of steep markdowns could disappoint consumers.

Retailers, however, have reason to celebrate. Last year, many stores were forced to offer heavy discounts on excess inventory. Those deals took a big bite out of profit margins. Many companies are heading into the holidays with a better inventory position this year, which “augurs well for 4Q margin expansion,” wrote Piper Sandler analyst Edward Yruma.

Discounts aside, there are other differences from Black Fridays of yore. Chiefly, the way people will shop has changed.

While many people will still be visiting malls in search of door-buster sales, a little more than half of consumers—55%—say they want to avoid Black Friday crowds, according to a Deloitte survey, and 58% say that door-buster deals have lost their appeal.

Instead, these bargain hunters are going to be scouring the internet for deals. Per Deloitte, 61% of shoppers’ Black Friday budgets will be spent online, up from 59% in 2022.

“It’s a lot easier to go on your laptop or on your phone from your couch on Black Friday than it is to stand outside in the cold,” said Brian Kinsella, senior vice president of product management at Manhattan Associates, a supply-chain solution provider to retailers.

In another twist from prepandemic days, many of those online purchases will be made on smartphones—76% of Thanksgiving Day sales were made on mobile, and 24% on computer desktops, according to early data from
Shopify
(ticker: SHOP).

Adobe expects Cyber Week, the period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, will generate $37.2 billion in online spend this year, up 5.4% year over year.

Overall, however, sales are expected to moderate this holiday season from past pandemic years. The National Retail Federation predicts total holiday sales will grow between 3% and 4% year over year to between $957.3 billion and $966.6 billion. While that’s in-line with the average annual increase over the decade before the pandemic, it marks a deceleration from the spikes in spending over the last two years. And the latest spate of retail earnings showed that sales were slowing down across various retailers, including Best Buy,
Target
(TGT),
Nordstrom
(JWN), and
Kohl’s
(KSS).

“We continue to see a cautious consumer and it remains to be seen how changes in inflation, higher interest rates, and the resumption of student loan repayments will affect discretionary consumer spending during the holiday season,” said Cathy Smith, Nordstrom’s chief financial officer, on a call with investors Tuesday.

Investors may also be tempted to spend Black Friday refreshing their browsers for updates on whether—and how much—consumers are shelling out this season. We understand the urge (and will likely be doing the same). But Citi analyst Paul Lejuez says it’s best not to read too much into the figures.

“Don’t get too worked up over retailers’ performance over Thanksgiving weekend (which represents approximately 10% of 4Q sales),” he wrote in a research note Wednesday. “We believe it is given too much attention. Stay home. Watch some football. Enjoy the time with family and friends. Happy Thanksgiving. Don’t burn the rolls.”

Write to Sabrina Escobar at [email protected]

Read the full article here

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email

Related Articles

He Went From Customer to CEO of 16 Handles

Investing July 9, 2025

Barbara Corcoran Retains Staff With Wild Perks, No Turnover

Investing July 8, 2025

Jack Dorsey Announces Bitchat Messaging App

Investing July 7, 2025

101 Small Business Ideas to Match Your Personality, Investment, Skills & Goals

Investing July 6, 2025

How to Deal With Negative Articles on Google

Investing July 5, 2025

13 Jobs Without College or AI: Salaries Can Start at $70k+

Investing July 2, 2025
Add A Comment

Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

Demo
Top News

Social Security & The Big Beautiful Bill

July 10, 20250 Views

Millionaires Are Fleeing These 10 Countries (the First Is Now in Europe)

July 10, 20250 Views

These 5 ‘Free Trials’ Are Draining Your Bank Without Warning

July 10, 20250 Views

Goldman Sachs Asking Junior Bankers to Confirm Loyalty

July 9, 20250 Views
Don't Miss

He Went From Customer to CEO of 16 Handles

By News RoomJuly 9, 2025

Entrepreneur Fresh out of an unfulfilling finance career, Neil Hershman was looking for something different…

Nvidia Hits Market Cap Milestone Before Apple, Microsoft

July 9, 2025

Trump admin resuming interest charges for nearly 8M student loan borrowers after Biden’s limbo

July 9, 2025

Big Beautiful Bill Estate Planning Ideas

July 9, 2025
Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest Dribbble
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Press Release
  • Advertise
  • Contact
© 2025 FintechoPro. All Rights Reserved.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.