Thanksgiving and Black Friday weekend saw a huge influx of shoppers who, for the most part, avoided actual establishments in favour of the convenience of clicking “purchase online” from the comfort of their couches.
Adobe Analytics reports that Black Friday online spending in the United States hit a record $9.8 billion, up 7.5% from the previous year. Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, or Cyber Weekend, online sales increased 7.7% to $10.3 billion. According to Adobe, Cyber Monday sales might total up to $12.4 billion, making it the largest online shopping day of the year in the United States.
Numerous e-commerce-focused shops benefited greatly from the impressive performance, and on Monday, their stocks rose sharply as investors welcomed the positive initial findings. While the stock of Amazon increased 0.6%, the shares of Etsy and Wayfair closed up almost 3% and 7%, respectively. After the business, which makes software for online retailers, announced that merchants had recorded record-breaking $4.1 billion in sales, Shopify’s shares ended the afternoon session over 5% higher.
When it comes to gauging the total Christmas shopping season, analysts and investors keep a careful eye on sales over the five days that start on Thanksgiving and expire on Cyber Monday. The trade association, National Retail Federation, projects that consumers will spend a higher percentage of their income this year than they did the previous, with a 3% to 4% increase in sales expected in November and December. Although there has been a decrease in inflation, grocery prices remain high, and the return of student loan installments has reduced some customers’ Christmas spending plans.
With this in mind, consumers who are trying to stretch their money have resorted to buy-now-pay-later services. From November 1 to November 23, $5.9 billion was spent online, up 13.4% from the previous year, mostly on buy-now-pay-later services like Afterpay, Klarna, and Affirm. Monday saw a nearly 12% increase in Affirm’s stock price.
Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski stated that the company was “very startled” to observe the popularity of buy-now-pay-later options on Black Friday in an interview with CNBC’s “The Exchange.”
Siemiatkowski stated, “It just illustrates how much market share both Klarna and buy-now-pay-later are obtaining in the market.” I believe the reasons are that more retailers are offering it, more customers are generally selecting it, and a larger percentage of checkouts.
Source (CNBC)
