Black Friday sales pulled off a surprise most Americans didn’t see coming in a shaky economy
Economic uncertainty and rising prices have been creating pressure on American consumers for months. But that hasn't stopped them from spending billions of dollars during the Black Friday sale, which registered record numbers this year. The retail sales soared with Americans spending $11.8 billion online, marking a 9.1% jump from 2024, according to e-commerce sales tracker, Adobe Analytics. The categories that saw the highest sales included video game consoles, electronics, clothing, and more. The numbers have added to the Trump administration's optimism on economic growth amid tariff and inflation concerns.
According to Adobe, shoppers spent a record $11.8 billion online on Friday, with the period between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. local time being the busiest nationwide, when sales peaked at about $12.5 million per minute. Americans spent a record $6.4 billion online on Thanksgiving Day alone, marking a rise of 5.3% from last year, with the most robust sales happening between 10 am and 2 pm as well. The firm added that services powered by artificial intelligence and social media advertising saw a big boost in sales as the tools influenced what consumers chose to buy. The top categories leading in sales were video games, consoles, electronics, and toys, including Labubu Dolls, LEGO sets, and more, according to Adobe.
Apart from Adobe, other industry trackers recorded robust numbers as well. Salesforce, which tracks digital spending from a range of retailers, including grocers, recorded sales of $18 billion in the U.S. and $79 billion globally, AP News reported. Meanwhile, e-commerce platform Shopify shared that its merchants registered $6.2 billion in sales worldwide, and the sales peaked at about $5.1 billion per minute. According to the firm, the top categories included cosmetics and clothing.
While polls show that Americans are worried about rising costs and the state of the economy, the White House has repeatedly dismissed notions that its aggressive tariffs hamper economic growth amid rising costs and a weakening job market. The director of the White House National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, said on Sunday that the Black Friday sales add to the administration's optimism on economic growth. Citing a roughly 10% rise in online sales and about 4% in in-store sales from last year, Hassett stated that it was a sign of the country's economic resilience, Politico reported. “I think the folks who were saying, ‘Wow, maybe people are going to be anxious about going back and getting presents for the kids’ and so on, they have been disproven this weekend,” he told CBS’s Nancy Cordes in an interview on “Face the Nation.”
However, the uptick in sales numbers fails to account for the rise in prices due to inflation. “We have 3% inflation, so maybe (the 4.1% increase in spending) is a real increase of just 1% or so, which is not that much of an increase,” Rick Newman, who writes The Pinpoint Press, a newsletter on the US economy, told CNN. Despite this, Hassett pushed the message of "something that's stronger to come." “I think the reason is that incomes are up this year is that we had a great jobs report, and with strong income and the government shutdown over, so that people have pent-up demand as well, I think that we’re looking at a great recovery from a weak few weeks because of the shutdown,” he told Cordes.
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