Overview
- U.S. consumers spent a record $11.8 billion online on Black Friday after $6.4 billion on Thanksgiving, according to Adobe Analytics.
- In-store Black Friday foot traffic fell 3.6% year over year as shoppers shifted toward e-commerce and longer promotion windows, RetailNext reported.
- Nearly 187 million people are expected to shop from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, yet average per-person holiday spending is projected to dip to about $890, NRF surveys show.
- Retailers rolled out unusually deep discounts across electronics, toys and apparel, while more shoppers used generative AI for deal discovery and buy-now-pay-later plans to stretch budgets.
- The NRF still projects the first $1 trillion holiday season for November and December, with tariffs and soft confidence weighing on prices and purchase volumes.