Store Traffic And Online Sales Up

More consumers went to stores, and shoppers spent more online, this Black Friday, compared to last year, getting the holiday season off to a merry start, according to the initial numbers.

E-commerce sales were up 7.5% on Black Friday compared to 2022, with a record $9.8 billion spent online during the day, according to an Adobe Analytics report released today.

Store Traffic Up 4.6%

In-store traffic saw its strongest growth in recent years, up 4.6% compared to last year’s Black Friday, according to Sensormatic Solutions, which tracks shopper visits to stores.

The surge in store shoppers on Black Friday reversed the trend Sensormatic Solutions has seen throughout this year of declining store visits. Shopper traffic has been down 2.4% on average to date this year, according to Sensormatic Solutions.

In-store traffic on Black Friday “outperformed our expectations,” Grant Gustafson, head of retail consulting and analytic at Sensormatic Solutions, said in a statement released with the Black Friday numbers.

“This is the most significant Black Friday increase we’ve seen in recent memory,” he said. “It’s great news for retailers and consumers as we head into the remaining days of the holiday season.”

Lines At Mall Stores

At Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, N.J., one of New Jersey’s largest and busiest malls, shoppers waited in long lines on Black Friday to get into Sephora, the Ugg shoe store, and other popular retailers.

Deep discounting appeared to drive sales in stores and online, a factor that could eat into retail profits. The final verdict on how merry the holidays were for retailers won’t be known until retailers report their fourth quarter results next year.

But for now, retailers and analysts are cheering that fact that consumers, while looking for deals and shopping carefully, haven’t scaled back their spending.

Adobe expects Cyber Week – the period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday – to generate $37.2 billion in online spending, up 5.4% compared to the same period last year.

Adobe also says the increased spending is being driven by net-new demand, not higher prices, because its Digital Price Index shows e-commerce prices have fallen consecutively for 14 months.

Shopify Reports Record Sales

Shopify
SHOP
, the e-commerce company whose platforms are used to operate retail stores and websites around the world, reported today that its merchants had record Black Friday sales, both online and offline, of $4.1 billion.

According to Shopify, it saw peak sales per minute of $4.2 million at 12:01 p.m. EST on Black Friday. The top five product categories purchased from Shopify merchants were clothing, personal care, jewelry, shoes, and decor items. Three-fourths of online sales were made on mobile devices, one-fourth on desktops.

Super Saturday Expected To Be Busy

Sensormatic Solutions, which is a division of Johnson Controls
JCI
, expects that Black Friday will turn out to be the busiest day of this holiday season, in terms of numbers of shoppers in stores.

Super Saturday, the last Saturday before Christmas Eve (Dec. 23 this year), is expected to be the second busiest traffic day.