Ahead of ‘Black Friday’ online sales jumped 14 percent

The value of online purchases in the United States during Thanksgiving exceeded one billion dollars, which is nearly 14 percent higher than the same time last year, and data from the Adobe Digital Index shows that more and more Americans are shopping online and less in traditional stores.

At the beginning of the holiday shopping season, the first after Donald Trump’s election as president on November 8, American consumers opened their wallets and spent $1.15 billion shopping online between midnight and 5 PM on Thursday, Adobe reported.

On ‘Black Friday’, the day after Thanksgiving, the pre-holiday shopping season traditionally begins in the U.S., with stores offering significant discounts and making profits. However, the popularity of such holiday shopping is declining due to the increasingly popular online shopping and discounts that retailers like the giant Amazon.com offer throughout the year.

Stimulating Consumption

American stores are now open on Thanksgiving Day to encourage shopping, but online retailers are offering discounts weeks in advance in an effort to boost reduced demand and strong price competition.

“We recorded one of our strongest online sales days to date,” said Brian Cornell, CEO of discount online retailer Target, on Thursday evening. He added that online sales have increased at double-digit rates but did not want to disclose details.

The holiday period in November and December is crucial for retail, accounting for up to 40 percent of annual sales. Therefore, retailers are trying to attract customers with significant discounts, sometimes even up to 85 percent.

The National Retail Federation, which was optimistic in earlier estimates, now expects holiday sales revenue this year to increase by 3.6 percent to $655.8 billion.

“Online discounts this year came earlier and are much larger than last year,” said Tamara Gaffney from the Adobe Digital Index.

Adobe collected data from 21 billion online visits to 4,500 retail websites in the United States. “Black Friday is no longer just a one-day event; it has turned into weeks of discounts,” says Christopher Baldwin, CEO of BJ Wholesale Club.