Adobe: Shoppers Have Already Spent $62.5B Online, With Record Black Friday On Tap

Consumers have already spent $62.5 billion online in November as holiday shopping gets underway – a 32.6 percent gain from this time last year, according to Adobe Analytics. Sales have also shot up 49.2 percent year on year since just Sunday alone, and Adobe is reiterating its forecast for record online sales for Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

“Even before Thanksgiving, shoppers are seeing Black-Friday-like discounts on gift items,” Taylor Schreiner, director of Adobe Digital Insights, said Wednesday (Nov. 25) in a statement provided to PYMNTS. “With these lower prices, there is no reason not to start crossing off items on your shipping list now. Retailers certainly hope consumers will be shopping early so that their purchases can be shipped and delivered in time.”

Adobe, which analyzed 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, also found that curbside pickup and buy online/pick up in store have shot up 140 percent year over year so far this week. “BOPIS/curbside pickup has jumped above early pandemic levels as lockdowns and discounts create a perfect storm to fuel online sales growth,” the firm said in its statement.

In fact, Adobe found that retailers who offer BOPIS and/or curbside pickup are enjoying 29 percent higher online conversion rates so far this week.

Among other findings, Adobe found online sales topped $1 billion in each of November’s first 24 days, with four days seeing more than $3 billion in purchases. The company reported that smartphones are especially hot, with $24.2 billion of sales between Nov. 1 and Nov. 24. That’s a 49.2 percent gain year over year — and accounts for 38.6 percent of all eCommerce sales during the period.

Adobe added that the season’s hottest toys so far have been LEGO sets, hoverboards, Baby Alive, and Star Wars plush toys and electronic dolls. Top video games include Super Mario 3D All-Stars, Cyberpunk 2077 and Madden NFL 21, while the new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S game consoles are flying off the (virtual) shelves.

The company also surveyed 1,000 consumers and found that 56 percent believe retailers will save the best discounts for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Only 17 percent of consumers expect to shop online on Thanksgiving Day, but 51 percent plan to do so on Black Friday and 48 percent will hit shopping sites on Cyber Monday.

All in, Adobe reiterated its forecasts for a record-setting $6 billion in online sales on Thanksgiving Day (up 42.3 percent year over year) and a record $10.3 billion in Black Friday online sales (39.2 percent above last year). The firm also predicts that Cyber Monday’s online sales will grow 35.3 percent from last year’s levels to a record $12.7 billion.

And for the November/December holiday-shopping season as a whole, Adobe reaffirmed its prediction that consumers will spend $189.1 billion online, up 33.1 percent from the 2019 holiday season.