Black Friday generated a record $9.8 billion in U.S. online sales, up 7.5% from a year earlier. According to Adobe Analytics, mobile shopping has created $5.3 billion in online sales.
Black Friday’s best-selling categories were electronics such as smartwatches and televisions, as well as toys and gaming, CNBC reports.
Vivek Pandya, a chief analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, was quoted as saying, “We have seen the emergence of very strategic consumers in the last one year where they are really trying to take advantage of these marquee days so that they can get the maximum discounts.
Pandya noted that influencer and social media advertising have made it easier for consumers to spend money on their mobile devices.
However, shoppers were price-conscious, managing tighter budgets as a result of record inflation and interest rates last year.
A total of $79 million in sales came from customers who used the ‘buy now, pay later’ flexible payment method, up 47% from last year.
Adobe collects data by analyzing one trillion visits to retail websites in the United States, 18 product categories, and 100 million unique items.
Black Friday continued the momentum from Thanksgiving Day when online sales totaled $5.6 billion, an increase of 5.5% from last year.
While Adobe expects spending to remain strong over the weekend and Cyber Monday, the best deals are yet to come.
The report predicts that online shoppers will spend nearly $10 billion on Saturday and Sunday and a record $12 billion on Cyber Monday.
