Strong online sales show Black Friday was an ‘omnichannel event’

The preference for online shopping on Black Friday is becoming the “new normal,” Deloitte Retail Research Leader Lupine Skelly told Retail Brew.

“It used to be really heavily in-store,” she said. “You kind of had to show up to get those doorbuster deals, and now it really has morphed into an omnichannel event.”

Early data from Adobe Analytics backs this up: Online spending on Black Friday jumped 7.5% year over year to $9.8 billion. This momentum carried over into the rest of the holiday weekend, with online sales rising 7.7% YoY.

Those gains reflected behind-the-scenes effort, Adobe noted; companies had stepped up their game ahead of the sales weekend.

“An uncertain demand environment pushed retailers to deliver big discounts this season, while also fortifying their e-commerce services with flexible payment methods, better personalization, and enhanced mobile functionality,” Vivek Pandya, lead analyst for Adobe Digital Insights, said in a statement.

The research firm also found that buy now, pay later (BNPL) usage hit an all-time high on Cyber Monday of $940 million online, rising a “staggering” 42.5% year over year. It had already generated $7.3 billion between Nov. 1 and Nov. 26, up 14% YoY.

Millennials get physical: Despite rising online sales, millennials appeared more willing to shop in-store than older generations going into Black Friday weekend.

A Black Friday survey from Deloitte found that half of millennials were willing to go to a store between midnight and 7am, compared to 31% of other age groups. A recent Harris Poll also found that more millennials and zoomers would be shopping at malls than Gen X and boomers.

“There is a group that’s still kind of wanting to show up for those doorbuster deals, but it sort of explains maybe why it’s down, right?” Skelly said. “The rest of these groups are saying, ‘Yeah, that’s not for me; I’ve aged out of that.’”