Black Friday Was a Hit Online, Reaching a Record $9.8 Billion in the U.S.

Online sales reached $70.9 billion globally, an 8% increase from Black Friday last year, according to data from
Salesforce.
Black Friday global online sales were $65.3 billion last year.

In the U.S., online sales increased 9% to $16.4 billion, according to the Salesforce data. A Salesforce spokesperson said the figures beat what the company was expecting.

Adobe said electronics were a major growth driver this year, and called out smartwatches, TVs, and audio equipment as popular purchases. Other hot sellers included toys such as Barbie Fashionista dolls and KidKraft play sets; gaming consoles such as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X; and videos Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

Footwear, health and beauty, skincare, and sporting goods were all high-performing categories this year, Salesforce said.

Shopify,
which counts both online and offline sales from its merchants, said global sales increased 22% year over year to a record $4.1 billion.

The data follow on a solid Thanksgiving Day performance for retailers. Adobe estimated that a record $5.6 billion was spent online on Thursday, up 5.5% year over year.

And the shopping weekend isn’t over. Adobe sees another $10 billion in U.S. sales across Saturday and Sunday, with Cyber Monday bringing in a record $12 billion. Shoppers were expected to do about a sixth of all their online holiday shopping between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.

Last year, Salesforce saw a total of $281 billion in global online sales and $68 billion in the U.S. across what it calls Cyber Week, the period between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Salesforce projects a 1% increase in U.S. Cyber Week online sales this year and a 4% increase globally.

The data don’t give a clear picture into what’s happening on the ground at the bricks-and-mortar operations of big retailers like
Best Buy,
Target,
Nordstrom,
and
Kohl’s.
Recent earnings from those companies have shown a slowdown in sales.

And the National Retail Federation predicted that total holiday sales growth will slow this year to a rate of 3% to 4%, between $957.3 billion and $966.6 billion. That’d be the smallest increase since 2019 when sales grew 3.8%.

Shoppers are expected to do a lot more of their shopping online this year. A Deloitte study found that 61% of shoppers’ Black Friday budgets will be spent online this year, a two-percentage point increase over last year.

Those purchases are being made on shoppers’ phones. Salesforce said 79% of digital visits to websites this year came from mobile phones, a record high in mobile traffic. Adobe said mobile shopping accounted for $5.3 billion of Black Friday’s online sales—54% of all online sales.

Shoppers are also relying more on flexible payment methods, also known as Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL). Adobe noted that BNPL orders rose 72% week over week from Nov. 18 to Nov. 24. BNPL revenue increased 47% in that period, Adobe said.

Consumers and their budgets might feel more stretched this year. Still-hot inflation, higher interest rates, the resumption of student loan payments, and fears about an economic downturn are headwinds for shoppers, Barron’s has said.

Write to editors@barrons.com