Black Friday hits a record $74.4B in sales online, up 5% on last year

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The momentum of Thanksgiving — which saw consumers spend a record $33.6 billion spent globally online on the day — looks like it continued into Black Friday, with a bang. Adobe said that in the U.S., consumers made a record-breaking $10.8 billion of purchases, up 10.2% on last year. Meanwhile, Salesforce is giving a much higher overall spent estimate: $17.5 billion spent in the U.S., up 7% YoY. Globally, Salesforce said spending also reached a new high: $74.4 billion was spent in the 24-hour period, up 5% on a year ago.

For a point of comparison, in 2023 , Adobe said Black Friday online spend in the U.S. was $9.8 billion, and Salesforce said global spend was $70.9 billion.

Another bit of context: the numbers we’re seeing for Black Friday in the U.S. are a little bump compared to growth as tracked by U.S. Census Bureau . It said that e-commerce spend in the most recent quarter (Q3) was just over $300 billion, up between 6% and 8% on the same period a year ago. The lower percentage growth globally may well be due to the fact that, despite the best marketing efforts of e-commerce companies, Black Friday is not really a holiday day in the rest of world as it is in the U.S. marketing.

“Crossing the $10 billion mark is a big e-commerce milestone for Black Friday, for a day that in the past was more anchored towards in-store shopping”, said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst, Adobe Digital Insight, in a statement.. “And with consumers getting more comfortable with everything from mobile shopping to chat bots, we have tailwinds that can prop up online growth for Black Friday moving forward.”

The figures are closely watched because this week is typically the start of the holiday sales season, the most important period for retailers around the world.

Adobe said that at its peak between 10am and 2pm Eastern, Black Friday holiday sales bargains were being snapped up at a rate of $11.3 million spent each minute. Sales rates are the latest in real-time data, with both Shopify and Stripe also getting in on the action with futuristic animations that look like a spaceship console and a power generator . That’s one way to infuse a little more pizzazz into the world of … Read More