6/26

Early results from Black Friday seem to confirm recent softening in US consumer confidence.

According to the National Retail Federation:

More than 154 million consumers will shop over Thanksgiving weekend, up from 151 million shoppers in 2015, according to the annual Thanksgiving weekend results survey released today by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics.  Average spending per person over Thanksgiving weekend totaled $289.19, down slightly from $299.60 last year. With an average of $214.13 specifically going toward gifts or 74 percent of total purchases.

Retail spending continued to show a steady -- sometimes startling -- shift to online purchases. According to Adobe Digital Insights:

More than $5 billion ($5.27 billion) was spent online by the end of Black Friday, a 17.7 percent increase year-over-year (YoY). Black Friday set a new record by surpassing the three-billion-dollar mark for the first time at $3.34 billion (21.6 percent growth YoY) while Thanksgiving accounted for the remaining $1.93 billion. Black Friday became the first day in retail history to drive over one billion dollars in mobile revenue at $1.2 billion, a 33 percent growth YoY. 

Especially given the growth in mobile revenue, it will be interesting to see if we see a flattening of so-call Cyber-Monday spending.