• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, November 25, 2023

Adobe Analytics reports that eager shoppers spent $9.8 billion on Black Friday, a 7.5% gain from last year.

Based on that pace, Adobe now predicts that U.S. consumers will spend an additional $10 billion through Thanksgiving, with $4.8 billion Saturday and $5.2 billion on Sunday.

Adobe forecasts that once again Cyber Monday will be the biggest ecommerce day of the season, with $12 billion in online sales. That would be an increase of 5.4% from Cyber Monday of 2022.

Mobile transactions keep gaining importance, accounting for 54% of Black Friday’s sales, or $5.3 billion. That’s up 10.4% from last year, leading Adobe to forecast that, for the first time, m-commerce is likely to overtake desktop shopping for the full season.

A higher demand for electronics helped fuel Black Friday gains, up 152% from average daily sales throughout October. Smartwatches, with sales up 577%, TVs, up 484% and audio equipment, up 376%, were among the category’s biggest stars.

Consumers also raced for the virtual toy aisles, and Adobe reports KidKraft playsets, Barbie Fashionista dolls and Mini Brands Toys all sold well. In gaming, PlayStation5, Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch gaming consoles were among the leading choices. Video games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Spiderman 2 and Super Mario Bros. Wonder all landed in plenty of baskets.

Earlier this week, the National Retail Federation released survey results indicating that the top four gift categories are likely to be clothing, named by 56% of the consumers the NRF polled, followed by gift cards at 44%, toys at 37%, and books, video games and other media at 31%.

In an indication that more people are worried about household finances, Adobe also reports a sharp increase in Buy Now Pay Later methods, up 72% in the past week.

However, those robust ecommerce gains don’t necessarily translate to total retail results. Following the last few weeks of quarterly reports from major retailers, which have ranged from mixed to meh, Wedbush Securities crunched some numbers. It, too, anticipates the kind of ecommerce strength seen in the early Adobe numbers, up 8.8% for the full season.

Those gains are likely to be twice as strong as total retail growth, which Wedbush says is expected to be up 4.1%, down from 6% last year.