5 smart tips to save money on Black Friday and holiday shopping
Check out our 5 expert tips to stretch your budget and get the best deals this Black Friday and holiday season.
Preliminary Black Friday sales data won’t start being released until the evening or the day after Black Friday, but reports on Thanksgiving sales show that spending is strong.
This year’s Thanksgiving sales increased from last year, according to sales statistics from at least two companies that track shopping.
Shoppers go online the most before Thanksgiving meal
Adobe says shoppers spent a record $6.4 billion online on Thanksgiving. Adobe said sales rose 5.3% year over year as shoppers took advantage of Cyber Week sales.
Actual spending on the day exceeded Adobe’s expectations ($6.37 billion). Adobe says online sales peaked earlier in the day, with the strongest sales occurring between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Last year, peak shopping hours were 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
“The size of the discounts was a hot topic yesterday on Thanksgiving, as retailers leaned on offering great deals to drive consumer demand online,” Vivek Pandya, principal analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said in a press release. “This trend was further fueled by impulse-driven mobile shopping and the use of generative AI to help shoppers find the best deals, two trends that resulted in overall Thanksgiving spending that exceeded expectations.”
Adobe expects Black Friday online sales to reach a record $11.7 billion, up 8.3% from last year. Adobe expects Cyber Monday sales to increase 6.3% year over year to $14.2 billion.
Adobe said big-ticket purchases for homes, as well as video games and electronics, increased on Thanksgiving. Online sales of video game consoles increased by 740% this October compared to the average spend. Sales of refrigerators and freezers increased by 720%.
Global Thanksgiving sales also increase
Salesforce data also reported an increase in Thanksgiving sales. According to Salesforce, digital sales totaled $35.6 billion worldwide (up 6% year over year) and $8.4 billion in the United States. This was a 3% increase compared to last year’s Thanksgiving online sales.
Salesforce expects Black Friday to be the biggest online shopping day, with global online sales of $78 billion (up 5% year-over-year) and $18 billion in the U.S. (up 3%).
According to Salesforce, the best-performing shopping category in the U.S. on Thanksgiving Day was active apparel and footwear, with sales up 19% year-over-year.
Betty Lin-Fisher is a consumer reporter for USA TODAY. Contact her at blinfisher@USATODAY.com or follow her at @blinfisher on X, Facebook and Instagram and @blinfisher.bsky.social on Bluesky.. Sign up for our free The Daily Money newsletter, breaking down complex consumer and financial news. Subscribe here.
