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Strong early holiday spending slightly curtailed consumer spending over the Thanksgiving weekend, according to reports from Adobe Inc. Consumers spent $4.5 billion online on Saturday, down 4.3% from a year ago, and $4.7 billion online the following day, down 0.5% from the same period a year ago.
But Adobe is predicting consumers will spend between $10.2 billion and $11.3 billion online on Monday, known as Cyber Monday, making it the biggest online-shopping day of the year. In 2020, consumers spent $10.8 billion on Cyber Monday, according to Adobe Analytics data
Overall, Black Friday sales online totaled $8.9 billion, down from $9 billion in 2020, while consumers spent $5.1 billion on Thanksgiving Day, the same amount spent a year earlier.
It is the first time there has been decreased year-over-year spending on the big shopping days since Adobe began reporting on e-commerce sales in 2012, the company says. Adobe Analytics analyzes more than 1 trillion visits to retail e-commerce sites in the United States, 100 million SKUs, and 18 product categories.
“Online sales on big shopping days like Thanksgiving and Black Friday are decreasing for the first time in history, and it is beginning to smooth out the shape of the overall season,” Taylor Schreiner, director, Adobe Digital Insights, says in a prepared statement. “With 21 days in November driving over $3 billion in spend, what we know as Cyber Week is starting to look more like Cyber Month.”
A primary reason for the decline in Thanksgiving weekend sales is that consumers began their holiday shopping this year earlier than normal. For the period of Nov. 1 to Nov. 28, consumers spent $99.1 billion, up 13.6% from the same period a year earlier. During that period, 21 days exceeded $3 billion in sales, compared to eight days that topped that figure in 2020.
The increase in early holiday sales shows not only the effectiveness of early deals, but also how much consumers have taken supply-chain issues seriously, Adobe says. Given the high levels of holiday spending so far, Adobe is predicting sales for the entire holiday shopping season (Nov. 1 to Dec. 31) to total $207 billion, a 10% increase from the same period in 2020.
Consumer usage of buy now, pay later services slowed over the weekend. BNPL revenue was down 10% from Thanksgiving weekend in 2020, and BNPL orders were down 23%. The slowdown in purchases financed with BNPL is an indication that consumers are feeling more confident about their spending capabilities, Adobe says.
Top sellers over the Thanksgiving weekend include toys, electronics, video games, and televisions.
One potentially ominous sign for merchants is that delays in the supply chain are starting to impact consumers’ ability to make purchases. Out-of-stock messages were up 16% over the Thanksgiving weekend compared to the prior weekend (Nov. 20-21)
The shortage of products is of such concern that Adobe is cautioning Cyber Monday shoppers to be flexible and expect that they may not get exactly the make and model of the product they want. Baby and toddler products have the highest out-of-stock levels currently, followed by electronics, home-and-garden products, toys, and books.
