Black Friday 2017 sees record online sales
But year-over-year sales growth was fatter for Thanksgiving Day. Damn the cranberries, full steam ahead to the worldwide shopping mall!
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Over the long weekend, online shoppers gave thanks for fulfillment centers.
When it comes to Thanksgiving Day traditions, it seems gobbling turkey with family hasn't quite been edged out by online shopping, at least not yet.
Black Friday still takes the cake (or the pumpkin pie) when it comes to cruising the internet for bargains, judging by final numbers from Adobe Analytics, released Saturday.
The day after Turkey Day saw $5.03 billion in online sales versus Thanksgiving Day's $2.87 billion internet haul, Adobe says. Those are both records, though, so it seems a relatively safe bet that more people are jumping online regardless of whether they're stuffing their faces with marshmallow yams or lolling on the couch in a day-after, L-tryptophan stupor.
And numbers for Turkey Day saw bigger growth. This year's Black Friday sales total is a 16.9 percent increase over 2016's $4.3 billion in online sales, says Adobe. Thanksgiving Day, on the other hand, saw a beefier, 18.3 percent increase, from 2016's $1.3 billion.
Still, both days' totals are likely to fall by the wayside once Thanksgiving weekend comes to an end and we charge unreservedly into the Christmas/Hanukkah/your-observance-of-choice shopping season. Adobe predicts this Cyber Monday will be the largest US online shopping day in history, with $6.6 billion in sales, a 16.5 percent increase from 2016.
Other tidbits from Adobe on Saturday:
- The holiday shopping season so far, Nov. 1 to Nov. 24, saw $38.3 billion in online shopping revenue. That's a year-over-year increase of 17.8 percent.
- Chromecast and Roku streaming devices and the Nintendo Switch were among the top sellers on Black Friday. They were joined by playthings such as Hatchimals & Colleggtibles toys, PJ Masks, L.O.L. Surprise Dolls and Ride On Cars.
- More and more shoppers made purchases via mobile devices on Black Friday, with the gadgets accounting for 54.3 percent of page visits and 36.9 percent of sales. Not surprisingly, phones were tops, with 44.6 percent of visits and 26 percent of revenue.
Adobe calls its report "the most comprehensive set of insights and predictions of its kind in the industry" and says it's based on looking at 1 trillion visits to more than 4,500 retail sites.
Since you're clearly online at the moment (after all, you're reading this), why wait for Cyber Monday? Take a quick hop over to our list of the absolute best Black Friday deals you can still get, and maybe you'll bag a bargain.
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