I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! And with that, we have also closed on Black Friday.
Now it’s time to see how much money people around the US spent and on what.
For the 2023 holiday season, sales are projected to surpass $220 billion, a near 5% growth rate from last year.
So far, from November 1st to the 24th, holiday sales have reached $86.6 billion.
Analysts predict that Cyber Monday 2023 sales will approach $12 billion.
In November, the average daily sales volume was about $3 billion, with a ramp-up towards the end of the month.
The hottest products this Black Friday were:
According to Adobe Analytics, $79 million of the Black Friday sales came from consumers who opted for the ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ flexible payment method to stretch their budgets, up 47% from last year.
Personally, I don’t think that says much because even I use 'Buy Now, Pay Later' on larger purchases to smooth out cash flow, especially when most of the time it’s financed at 0% with small monthly fees.
However, it could still indicate that consumers are extending themselves further into debt, which might slow down future spending.
Affirm, one of the most popular Buy Now, Pay Later companies, was up 11.93% on Monday.
The retail index was down 0.59% on Monday.