Black Friday online sales took a dip this year and this is the first time spending has been lower than last year. That’s according to a holiday shopping report by Adobe Analytics. This year online shoppers spent approximately $8.9 billion. That’s down slightly from last year’s $9.0 billion.
According to Adobe, the decline in sales is related to the stores starting early Black Friday promotions as early as October.
Black Friday sales experience a decline for the first time
Shoppers made 44% of their Black Friday purchases using a smartphone. That’s a 10.6% increase over last year, analysts at Adobe say.
Vivek Pandya from Adobe Digital Insights states that: “For the first time ever, Black Friday saw a reversal of the growth trend of past years. Shoppers are being strategic in their gift shopping, buying much earlier in the season and being flexible about when they shop to make sure they get the best deals.”
Early sales might have been the main factor behind the dip, but there were other factors such as global supply chain issues.
According to the report of Adobe, shoppers are having a harder time getting the products they want because out-of-stock messages are increasing by 124 percent.
The ongoing shortage of microchips is responsible for much of what’s going on in today’s market. Appliances and electronics are the biggest victims, but just about any type of product is susceptible to this kind of situation.
According to Adobe’s estimates, people have spent $3 billion during the first 19 days, last year this figure has had been exceeded in 5 days.
