How's 2023 Black Friday?

According to Adobe Analytics, a third-party statistical agency in the e-commerce industry, American consumers' enthusiasm for shopping on "Black Friday" will continue to rise. $Amazon.com(AMZN)$

This year's online shopping consumption on Black Friday increased by 7.5% compared to 2022, reaching a new high of $9.8 billion. This performance is better than 2022 (up 2.3% YoY) and better than the October forecast ($9.6 billion, up 5.7% YoY). Online shopping consumption on Thanksgiving before Black Friday increased by 5.7% YoY, better than the same period last year (up 2.9% YoY) and slightly better than the forecast of 5.5%. Therefore, Adobe predicts that total holiday sales this year will reach $221.8 billion (up 4.8% YoY), and this data only analyzes online consumption on retail websites, excluding retail consumption in physical stores.

At the same time, transaction data from Mastercard for physical stores and online retail transactions shows that retail sales on Black Friday this year increased by 2.8% YoY, with online transactions increasing by 8.5% and physical store transactions increasing by only 1.1%.

Therefore, we can focus on several important factors:

1. Online shopping performed well overall in 2023, surpassing offline consumption. This includes Prime Day in July, which indicates a shift in consumer purchasing behavior and an increase in the penetration rate of online shopping.

2. Online shopping offers greater transparency and choice, making it more popular among consumers in this high inflation environment.

3. Many sellers failed to achieve the expected increase in sales volume due to the fierce competition among multiple e-commerce platforms during Black Friday, which divided the market traffic. This includes promotions from platforms like Pinduoduo ( $Pinduoduo Inc.(PDD)$ ), Shein, and TikTok Shop.

4. On a macro level, robust employment, low unemployment rate, excess savings, and relatively healthy household balance sheets support the current level of consumer spending.