Black Friday Shopping Online Hit a New Record

Shoppers have been flocking to the internet for their holiday shopping needs a lot more in recent years and with COVID-19 this year, online sales drastically exploded during Black Friday sales.

According to preliminary data from Sensormatic Solutions, traffic at stores on Black
Friday dropped 52.1% compared to last year. Online spending however exploded 21.6% to hit a new record according to data from Adobe Analytics.

“Shoppers are spreading out their shopping throughout the holiday season because of concerns about social distancing and the pandemic,” said Brian Field, a senior director of global retail consulting at Sensormatic Solutions.

“We knew Black Friday [traffic] was going to be down, we just didn’t know how much it was going to be down,” said Field.

The big jump in online sales may be thanks in part to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommending that Americans shop online the day after Thanksgiving.

Sensormatic Solutions found that on Thanksgiving Day, when many retailers including big box-retailers like Walmart and Target who closed their stores due to the pandemic, traffic dropped 94.9% year over year.

“Black Friday this year, from a traffic impact perspective, looked a lot like a typical Saturday after a Black Friday,” Field said.

Adobe Analytics found that consumers rang up a staggering $9 billion worth of purchases on the internet the day after Thanksgiving.

This has made Black Friday 2020 the second-largest online spending day in history in the United States, behind Cyber Monday last year, said the firm.

“New consoles, phones, smart devices and TVs that are traditional Black Friday purchases are sharing online shopping cart space this year with unorthodox Black Friday purchases such as groceries, clothes and alcohol, that would previously have been purchased in-store,” said Taylor Schreiner, a director at Adobe Digital Insights.

The firm also found consumers spent $6.3 million per minute online, or $27.50 per person, on average. Spending on smartphones surged 25.3% year over year to reach $3.6 billion, representing 40% of total e-commerce spending.

Personal items and food were additionally big sellers this Black Friday online. Online grocery shopping soared 397% compared with October daily averages, Adobe said. Sales of personal care products skyrocketed 556%, and online spending on pet products rose 254%.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.