Black Friday Statistics 2026: Spending Trends, Online vs In-Store Data, and Shopping Insights

Black Friday statistics for 2025 show $11.8 billion in US online sales, 202.9 million Thanksgiving weekend shoppers, and mobile handling over half of all transactions. Learn how spending trends, discount rates by category, and AI adoption are shaping how people shop.

Black Friday doesn’t actually have the biggest discounts of the year. That honor, depending on the category, usually goes to January clearance or Amazon Prime Day. But Black Friday does something those events can’t: it moves more money in one day than almost any other event in retail. And the numbers from the most recent season are hard to wrap your head around.

Key Black Friday Statistics at a Glance

The top number from the most recent Black Friday: US consumers spent $11.8 billion online in a single day, up 9.1% from the year before (Adobe Analytics). Not the holiday season total. One day.

The National Retail Federation reported a record 202.9 million shoppers across Thanksgiving weekend. Global online spending hit $79 billion (Salesforce), up 6.18% from the year before. And the full November-December season? $257.8 billion online, per Adobe Analytics. Up 6.8%.

BNPL hit $747.5 million on Black Friday, up 30.85% from the year before. Mobile drove 55.2% of online sales, worth $6.5 billion. Not marginal trends. This is how people shop now.

Black Friday Online Sales by Year (2017-2025)

US online Black Friday sales have more than doubled in eight years. $5 billion in 2017. $11.8 billion in 2025. The compound growth rate across that stretch works out to about 11.3% per year.

Two things stand out in this timeline. First, 2020 was the outlier. Store closures pushed shoppers online and lifted spending from $7.4 billion to $9 billion in one year. Then 2021 dipped as stores reopened and supply chains got messy. Growth came back steadier from 2022. Second, the 2025 figure beat Adobe’s own pre-season forecast. That doesn’t happen often.

Black Friday 2025 Results: Record-Breaking Numbers

Almost every metric set a record in the most recent Black Friday. Adobe’s final count was $11.8 billion in US online sales. Salesforce put total US spending higher at $18 billion. The difference is methodology. Adobe tracks online transactions from participating retailers. Salesforce adds buy-online-pickup-in-store. Both figures are records.

Peak spending hit $12.5 million per minute between 10am and 2pm ET. For four hours straight, US consumers were collectively spending more than $200,000 per second.

Shopify merchants had their own record. $6.2 billion globally on Black Friday 2025, up 51.2% from the year before, with a peak of $5.1 million per minute. That rate shows smaller retailers taking a real chunk of holiday spending. It used to go almost entirely to the giants.

Cyber Monday followed and hit an estimated $14.2 billion in online sales. Biggest online shopping day of the year. So is Black Friday bigger? By online volume, no. Cyber Monday wins. But Black Friday drives more in-store traffic and carries more cultural weight. Most retailers treat the two as one long event now.

Online vs In-Store Shopping: The Channel Shift

Online shoppers now outnumber in-store shoppers on Black Friday. The most recent Thanksgiving weekend saw 134.9 million online versus 129.5 million in-store. That’s a new reality. For most of Black Friday’s history, in-store was dominant.

What’s interesting: in-store traffic actually rose modestly, up about 1.17% on Black Friday day itself. Online just grew faster. A Drive Research survey of over 1,200 shoppers found 71% preferred online over in-store. Physical retail isn’t gone. But online is winning.

Mobile Shopping Statistics

Mobile now drives most of Black Friday online spending. In 2025, mobile drove 55.2% of all online Black Friday sales, worth $6.5 billion. Up from 54.5% the year before. Globally, Salesforce tracked 70% of online orders from mobile. That’s not a prediction. That’s the baseline now.

A steady 3-4 point gain per year. Adobe projects mobile will top 60% of online Black Friday sales by 2026. At this pace, that’s not a stretch.

The Drive Research survey found 53% of online shoppers prefer their phone over desktop. Mobile app revenue also rose 26.5% during Cyber Week per Tapcart. Not just browsers. Retail apps are getting a bigger piece of that mobile share.

What most guides miss: mobile’s rise changes coupon strategy too. From tracking codes across thousands of stores, we’ve noticed that mobile-first retailers more often put their best codes in the app only, with short expiration windows. If you’re not checking the retailer’s app alongside the website, you’ll probably miss the strongest Black Friday code available.

Black Friday Discount Statistics by Category

Black Friday discounts vary more by category than most people expect. The global average in 2025 was 25%, with EMEA markets at 24% (Salesforce). But the range by category is wide.

Source: Criteo and Salesforce aggregated data.

Electronics have some of the lowest discounts. That 11-17% range surprises shoppers who assume Black Friday is the best time to buy a TV. The deepest cuts go to jewelry and apparel. And toys at +412% volume show that urgency and gift pressure matter more than the headline percentage.

Here’s something worth knowing: those headline discount numbers don’t account for coupon codes on top. Tracking deals across hundreds of stores, a pattern keeps showing up each Black Friday week. Stores that post 15% off sitewide often still have active promo codes for another 10-15% off. Stack them both. The final total can beat the banner by a wide margin.

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) on Black Friday

Buy Now, Pay Later is now a major part of Black Friday. On Black Friday 2025, BNPL purchases hit $747.5 million, up 30.85% from the year before. Cyber Monday set a single-day BNPL record at $991.2 million.

That’s 11% growth for the full holiday season. And 80.7% of those BNPL purchases were on mobile. So the people using pay-later are nearly all shopping from their phones. Klarna saw triple-digit growth during Cyber Week.

The BNPL surge changes the math. A $300 purchase becomes four $75 payments. That changes what feels affordable. And it shifts buying behavior in ways that raw discount percentages don’t capture.

AI and the Future of Black Friday Shopping

AI hit Black Friday 2025 fast. AI-driven traffic to retail sites grew 805% year on year during the Black Friday period (Adobe Analytics). AI chatbot clicks to retail sites surged 1,800% (Salesforce). Retailers using generative AI saw 9% higher conversion rates. Big gap.

The Drive Research survey found 81% of Black Friday shoppers would use AI to help with holiday shopping. And 20% already used chatbots to find deals in 2025. Not niche numbers.

Salesforce forecasts that over 25% of all Black Friday 2026 orders will involve AI agents. Not just browsing help. Completing purchases. Adobe projects AI traffic will rise another 520% during the 2026 holiday season. If 2025 seemed big, 2026 will look very different.

So what does this mean in practice? Retailers are building AI-driven personal offers. Shoppers are using AI to compare deals faster than any manual search. The gap between a smart shopper and an uninformed one is getting wider every year.

Global Black Friday Spending by Country

Black Friday is no longer a US-only event. Global online spending hit $79 billion in 2025. The country-by-country picture is more complex than the headline suggests.

The UK’s Black Friday spending was set to hit 6.4 billion pounds per PwC UK. Adobe’s actual tracking of the Black Friday-through-Cyber Monday online window came in at 3.8 billion pounds, up 4.6% year on year.

Germany was more cautious. The HDE (German Retail Association) projected 5.8 billion euros in Black Friday and Cyber Monday revenue, down about 2% from the prior year. A MediaMarktSaturn survey found 59% of German shoppers were inspired by special offers rather than a fixed list. Deals drove them to shop. Pre-planned intent didn’t.

By purchase intent, top markets were UAE at 54%, Italy at 49%, and Australia and Spain at 44% each. These aren’t traditional Black Friday markets the way the US and UK are. But awareness has grown fast. A lot of the world now shops this sale.

Holiday Season Sales: The Bigger Picture

Black Friday is one day. But it kicks off a two-month spending stretch that dwarfs most other retail events globally.

The full 2025 holiday season (Nov-Dec) generated $257.8 billion in US online sales, up 6.8% from the prior year. The NRF forecast that total holiday retail would surpass $1 trillion in 2025, counting all channels.

Cyber Week alone (Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday) drove $44.2 billion in five days. That’s a single week accounting for about 17% of the entire holiday season’s online revenue.

How did that revenue split by channel? Paid search drove 29.7% of holiday online sales. Biggest single channel. Affiliates and influencers together hit 17.6%, with influencers converting at 9x the rate of regular social posts. Direct and organic took the rest.

Black Friday 2026 Predictions and Forecasts

The forecasts for the next Black Friday are already out, and they point to continued growth with some structural changes worth watching.

NRF projects 4.4% growth in total US retail for 2026, reaching $5.6 trillion. Deloitte puts e-commerce growth at 7-9% for the year. Adobe expects mobile to cross 60% of Black Friday online sales for the first time. And Salesforce forecasts AI will be involved in over 25% of Black Friday 2026 orders. That’s a big number.

Social commerce is worth watching too. Salesforce projects social’s share of online revenue to rise 51% in 2026. TikTok Shop and Instagram are turning into real checkout destinations, not just discovery tools.

What the forecasts don’t say explicitly: discount rates are expected to stay in the 25-28% average range. Deeper cuts than 2025? The data doesn’t support that hope.

How Smart Shoppers Save on Black Friday

The statistics show what people spend. Here’s the part that affects your own total.

An 80% majority of shoppers say special discounts are the top reason they shop Black Friday (Drive Research). Free shipping (78%) and store-wide promotions (77%) are the next biggest factors in where they choose to buy. And 57% of consumers said they want advance notice about Black Friday discounts, per Sinch survey data.

Price tracking before the event. Most Black Friday “deals” on electronics involve prices that crept up in October before being “discounted” in November. Price history tools show 90-day pricing on Amazon and Best Buy. They’ll tell you fast whether the advertised deal is real. Sometimes it isn’t.

Coupon codes on top of sale prices. From processing millions of codes during Black Friday week, we’ve seen that 40-50% of major retailers run promo codes that stack with their sitewide sale. The deal price plus a coupon beats either one alone. DontPayFull maintains updated coupon databases for this exact situation.

Start early. The best inventory, especially electronics and toys, often goes in the first two or three hours after a sale opens online. Waiting until afternoon on Black Friday means competing for whatever’s left.

Combine strategies at checkout. Stack a store’s loyalty rewards or cash-back offer with a promo code. The effective discount can run well above the headline percentage. Our Chrome extension tests available codes automatically at checkout. You don’t have to track them manually across a dozen retailers during the busiest week of the year.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much money is spent on Black Friday?

US consumers spent $11.8 billion online on Black Friday 2025, up 9.1% from the year before (Adobe Analytics). Total US spending, counting both in-store and online, was closer to $18 billion per Salesforce. Globally, online Black Friday spending hit $79 billion in 2025.

Is Black Friday bigger than Cyber Monday?

By online spending, Cyber Monday is larger. Cyber Monday 2025 hit an estimated $14.2 billion in US online sales versus $11.8 billion for Black Friday. But Black Friday drives more in-store traffic and carries more cultural weight. Most retailers treat the two days as one Cyber Week event.

What percentage of Black Friday shopping is done online?

Over the full Thanksgiving weekend, online shoppers (134.9 million) outnumbered in-store (129.5 million) in 2025. Among surveyed shoppers, 71% preferred online (Drive Research). Mobile drove 55.2% of online sales, worth $6.5 billion on its own.

How much do mobile shoppers spend on Black Friday?

Mobile devices drove $6.5 billion in US online Black Friday sales in 2025, making up 55.2% of total online spending (Adobe Analytics). Globally, Salesforce tracked 70% of all online orders coming from mobile. That share has grown from 47.1% in 2022.

What are the best Black Friday deals by category?

Toys and games see the largest volume surge at +412% versus a normal day. Apparel discounts average 22-23%, electronics run 11-17%, and makeup during Cyber Week hit up to 40% off (Salesforce). The global average Black Friday discount was 25% in 2025. Electronics discounts tend to be lower than shoppers expect.

What countries celebrate Black Friday?

Black Friday is now a global event. Key markets by spending include the US ($11.8B online), the UK (6.4 billion pounds projected by PwC), and Germany (5.8 billion euros projected by HDE). Purchase intent surveys showed the highest levels in UAE (54%), Italy (49%), and Australia and Spain (44% each).

What is the average Black Friday discount?

The global average discount on Black Friday 2025 was 25%, with EMEA at 24% (Salesforce). By category in the US: TVs and basic electronics around 11%, apparel and jewelry at 22-23%. Makeup during Cyber Week hit up to 40% off at some stores.

When did Black Friday start?

The term “Black Friday” for the post-Thanksgiving shopping rush came from Philadelphia in the 1960s. Police used it to describe the heavy foot and vehicle traffic. The retail idea of “going into the black” (turning profitable) caught on through the 1980s. By the 1990s it had become a national US event. The 2010s brought it to global markets.

Sources

1. Adobe Analytics via TechCrunch: US Black Friday online sales record $11.8B, peak spending data (2025)
2. NRF Press Release: Record 202.9 million Thanksgiving weekend shoppers (2025)
3. Adobe Holiday Shopping Season Report: Full holiday season $257.8B, mobile share projections (2025/2026)
4. Drive Research: Black Friday Shopping Statistics: 1,200+ shopper survey, AI adoption, online vs. in-store preferences (2025)
5. NRF: Holiday Sales to Surpass $1 Trillion: Total holiday retail forecast (2025)
6. Digital Commerce 360: Black Friday Ecommerce Sales: Mobile share of Black Friday online sales (2025)
7. LinkedIn: Martin Goetzinger: AI-driven retail traffic growth statistics (2025)
8. Salesforce via byyd.me: Global spending $79B, average discount rates, chatbot traffic data (2025)
9. PwC UK: UK Black Friday spending forecast 6.4 billion pounds (2025)
10. Reuters: UK Black Friday Online Sales: UK BF-CM weekend online 3.8 billion pounds (2025)
11. TheGlobalStatistics: Black Friday in US: In-store vs. online shopper counts, Thanksgiving weekend totals (2025)
12. statistics.blackfriday: Shopify revenue $6.2B, BNPL data, global aggregated figures (2025)

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