Online Xmas sales greater this year?

American online shoppers scrolled, tapped and clicked their way to a record $9.12bn of spending this Black Friday, a strong showing despite rising inflation continuing to pinch the pockets of the American consumer.

As we get to say almost annually, this year's online shopping season is expected to be the biggest ever. Indeed, analysts at Adobe Analytics are expecting total online sales for November and December to be up 2.5% on last year.

Whilst many retailers kicked off deals season early in October, online shoppers were clearly keen to hold out for Black Friday itself. Sales rose slightly on last year, but it's worth noting that those figures aren’t adjusted to reflect inflation — suggesting that the amount of actual stuff bought online might have fallen.

Nevertheless, shoppers have clearly clung to their online habits, with internet spending up 23% on the last pre-pandemic year — and Adobe’s analysts are forecasting that Cyber Monday will be even bigger than Black Friday.

Interestingly, 48% of customers on Friday were using smartphones to buy their goodies, up from 44% last year. Online shoppers have also been using buy-now-pay-later schemes more than ever before — a trend that obviously doesn't show up in the credit card data we discussed 2 weeks ago.