Winners and losers of Black Friday 2024

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Despite a push to bring the holidays forward to ease restrictions imposed by one of the shortest shopping windows in years, many people have saved their lists for after Thanksgiving.

Shoppers are expected to be careful with their spending during the holidays again this year. Inflation has dominated the news for several years, clouding retail sales growth, rattling consumers and even overshadowing the presidential election earlier this month. While inflation has eased and some retailers have consciously reduced prices in recent weeks, many households’ budgets remain tight. They may not get much relief if tariffs promised by new President Donald Trump take effect.

This could have consequences for holiday sales. Nordstrom said earlier this week that sales fell at the start of the fourth quarter, suggesting that the third quarter’s momentum may not be sustained.

Still, Black Friday was busy. This year, Black Friday peaked globally just after 2 p.m. Eastern Time, according to Block, which tracked transactions on its Square, Afterpay and Cash App Card platforms. U.S. retail sales (excluding auto sales) rose 3.4% compared to Black Friday last year. This is according to Mastercard’s SpendingPulse report, which measures in-store and online retail sales, includes all payment types and is not adjusted for inflation.

Buy now, pay later plans helped finance purchases and led to an 8.8% year-over-year increase in online spending to $686.3 million, according to Adobe Analytics. This is particularly true for mobile shopping, where the share has so far been 79.3% compared to desktop.

“Our real-time insights show consumers are in a good gift-giving mood as price cuts and deals emerge across industries that support holiday shopping budgets,” Michelle Meyer, chief economist at the Mastercard Economics Institute, said in emailed comments.

More numbers surrounding Thanksgiving weekend sales will continue to be crunched in the coming days, but here are the highs and lows of Black Friday so far.

winner

E-commerce

Cyber Monday appears to be losing importance as many Black Friday shoppers use their phones and computers to get ahead on their holiday list.

Salesforce noted U.S. online sales rose 7% year-over-year to $17.5 billion on Friday, while Adobe noted a 10.2% increase to $10.8 billion. Between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., $11.3 million was spent online every minute, according to Adobe.

“Passing the $10 billion mark is a big e-commerce milestone for Black Friday, for a day that has historically been more focused on in-store shopping,” said Vivek Pandya, senior analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, in emailed comments. “And as consumers become more comfortable with everything from mobile shopping to chat bots, we have tailwinds that can drive online growth for Black Friday going forward.”

Chatbots and AI

The current hype around artificial intelligence is sparking both fear and excitement as questions arise about technological advancements and their implications, and they left their mark on Black Friday this year. AI and AI agents drove more than $14 billion in global online sales on Black Friday, and according to Salesforce, retailers that use generative artificial intelligence had a 9% higher conversion rate than those that didn’t did.

AI-powered chatbots have been influential, as bot-driven clicks on retail sites increased by a whopping 1,800% year-over-year, according to Adobe. A fifth of people surveyed by Adobe said they used chatbots to find deals, 19% used them to search for items, and 15% used them for brand recommendations.

“Digital retailers that use generative AI and agents in their customer service experienced a nine percent higher conversion rate compared to those that don’t,” Caila Schwartz, director of consumer insights at Salesforce, said in via email comments sent. “For an industry that often focuses on margins, especially in light of rising costs in 2025, this percentage increase is a game-changer.”

toy

The toy category has experienced difficult times recently, reporting an 8% decline in sales last year. Circana analysts warned over the summer that signs of a turnaround earlier this year were no guarantee given ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty surrounding unemployment, record consumer debt, student loans and consumer confidence.

But toys had a good day on Black Friday: According to Adobe, online sales increased 622% compared to average daily sales last month. Top sellers included Harry Potter Lego sets; Articles related to the film “Wicked”; card and board games; Disney princess toys and dolls; and the Cookeez Makery oven playset, according to this report.

loser

Shopping in the store

Taking advantage of old-fashioned seasonal enticements like door openers and entertainment, the Mall of America reported that people were already lining up by early afternoon on Thanksgiving Day and that it welcomed more than 13,000 shoppers in the hour after its 7 a.m. opening on Black Friday.

In general, however, it appears that this year’s e-commerce boom came at the expense of brick-and-mortar stores. Nora Kleinewillinghoefer, a partner in Kearney’s consumer practice, noted that “Black Friday was quieter in stores this year,” while Michael Brown, also a Kearney partner, noted a relatively subdued day at Garden State Plaza in New Jersey, although he said shoppers included younger people and some employed clothing retailers.

Overall, store traffic fell 3.2% on Black Friday, with footfall down 7% in the Midwest, 2.1% in the Northeast, 3.5% in the South and 3.2% in the West, as according to data from RetailNext. Mastercard noted that online Black Friday sales rose 14.6% year-over-year, while in-store sales rose just 0.7% year-over-year.

Online shopping carts were also more than twice the size of in-store shopping carts, according to payments company Block.

This is due in part to early purchases that appear to have been conducted primarily online, in a year where “the period between Black Friday and Christmas is unusually short,” as Darpan Seth, CEO of Omnichannel Order Management Advisory and Software, per E -Mail commented company Nextuple.

That’s also because retailers are now better at making more goods available online that may have only been available in stores in previous years, Seth said.

Prices and margins

Black Friday has long been about getting good deals, but some discounts were particularly deep this year.

Categories that are more exposed to inflation and feature higher-priced items were primed for sharp price reductions. According to Nextuple’s Seth, retailers could also preemptively cull inventory that could ultimately be subject to Trump’s tariffs.

Adobe found that “discounts exceeded expectations” and were a purchasing motivator for toys (with top discounts of 27.8% off list price), as well as electronics (27.4% off), televisions (24.2% off) and apparel ( 22.2% discount), computers (22% discount) and sporting goods (19.5% discount). Discounts are expected to remain high during the shopping weekend, this report said.

According to Joe Shasteen, global manager of advanced analytics at RetailNext, Black Friday-like discounts can actually occur throughout the holiday shopping season.

“General economic pressures, such as high food prices and rising costs of living, may have further influenced shopper behavior,” Shasteen said in emailed comments. “Inflation-weary consumers appear to be prioritizing essential purchases and carefully weighing discretionary spending, underscoring the continued importance of value-based shopping decisions this holiday season.” Additionally, many retailers have extended Black Friday deals to expand the shopping window and give consumers more time to find discounts and spread out their purchases over the holidays.”

Black Friday

Thanks again to e-commerce, Thanksgiving Day is stealing even Black Friday’s reputation as a major retail sales day. This year, shoppers spent $6.1 billion online on Thanksgiving, a record amount that is 8.8% higher than last year, according to Adobe.

This growth also surpasses last year, when online Thanksgiving sales rose 5.5%, according to Adobe’s report. Additionally, holiday shopping in general has been extended beyond the Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday period, experts say.

“As brands expand their offerings over days or even weeks, the once hectic in-person rush is evolving into a digital experience,” Kearney’s Kleinewillinghoefer said in emailed comments. “Black Friday is no longer just a single shopping event – it has become part of a broader sales spectacle. With Cyber Monday dominating e-commerce and Travel Tuesday satisfying wanderlust, the holiday season is now a crowded marketplace with endless offers.”

Winners and losers of Black Friday 2024

ByAmelia Pressman

winner

E-commerce

Chatbots and AI

toy

loser

Shopping in the store

Prices and margins

Black Friday

By Amelia Pressman

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