Online Black Friday sales surge to new record
This week’s record-breaking online retail sales came despite the fact that it wasn’t marked as a Black Friday deal
Black Friday. At the beginning of the week, the US department store chains have long been the retail behemoths of the online world, as their massive sales come without the traditional flash crowds and lines.
But this year, for the first time, shoppers made a record high, while the online retailer also saw its biggest Black Friday sales since 2013.
Online retail sales jumped to $10.5bn from just $9.1bn last year, according to data from comScore. That’s up 21% from 2016, the biggest year-on-year jump the company has seen since 2013, when the online retailer also saw a record $10.4bn in sales.
It was more than $1bn on Black Friday, and Amazon’s own Black Friday sales figure, which was $3.2bn.
The last time that Black Friday sales were so high was 2013, when Amazon had a $25bn sale, and was not a Black Friday deal.
The online retailer had a big day online, as well.
“It’s really about the timing — you can’t ignore the fact that people are now used to online shopping. The timing has a lot to do with it,” said David Belson, director of research at comScore.
Belson said that the timing of this year’s sales meant that Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day are competing for online dollars — something the company has traditionally seen only on Cyber Monday and Black Friday, which are at the beginning of the week.
“In that context, it’s really a good thing,” he said.
ComScore’s chief executive officer, Robert Johnson, said that the fact that Black Friday deals are generally much cheaper online than
