Consumers Spend Record $6.1B Online on Thanksgiving

Consumers spent a record $6.1 billion online on Thanksgiving, up  8.8 percent year-over-year (YoY). Growth outpaced last year (Thanksgiving 2023: $5.6 billion, up 5.5% YoY), driven by big discounts across the board. Mobile shopping hit an all-time high on Thanksgiving, with 59.5 percent of online sales coming through a mobile device. This represents $3.6 billion in online spend via mobile, up 10.5 percent YoY. Overall, online sales peaked in the final hours of the day, between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. as holiday festivities wound down. The above is based on Adobe Analytics data, which analyzes commerce transactions online, covering over 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories.

Total Retail's Take: The holiday shopping season is off to a strong start, driven by growth in e-commerce sales. Retailers will count on that momentum continuing for the rest of the holiday season, albeit a compressed season this year, with in-store sales picking up on this Black Friday.

"Cyber Week is off to a strong start, where bigger-than-expected discounts on Thanksgiving propelled impulse shopping in categories like electronics and apparel,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst, Adobe Digital Insights. “As people gathered with family and friends, many were hitting the buy button on their mobile devices, which hit all-time high for the overall holiday season.”