Like the rest of the world, Americans woke up the day after Thanksgiving to news of the troubling new Omicron variant. That did not stop them shopping with gusto, in-store and online, on Black Friday, by tradition retailers’ break-even moment for the year. Initial figures suggest consumers were out in shops in greater force than last year, if not yet in pre-pandemic numbers. Online sales, after last year’s big step-up, were flattish. Yet with strong sales throughout November being fuelled by a release of cashpiles amassed in the pandemic, a reckoning was always set to follow. Omicron has now raised new questions over the sustainability of spending.
RetailNext, which tracks shopper numbers in stores, said Black Friday traffic rose 61 per cent over last year, though it was still down 27 per cent from 2019. Adobe estimated online sales slipped from $9.0bn in 2020 to $8.9bn this time — the first such fall since it began collecting figures in 2012. Adobe forecast consumers would spend between $10.2bn and $11.3bn online on Monday on what is known as “Cyber Monday” and is now the biggest online shopping day, against $10.8bn last year.
But relatively flat numbers for the extended holiday weekend reflect the fact that consumers brought forward purchases this year to avoid shortages caused by supply chain problems. Adobe estimates online sales in November 1-28 rose 13.6 per cent over last year to $99.1bn.