Turkey dinners and televised football games didn’t distract Americans much from gift shopping on Thanksgiving Day — at least online.
So suggests the latest sales data from Adobe and Salesforce, which on Friday both weighed in with upbeat reports indicating that holiday shopping is off to a good start. It’s being fueled by widespread discounting across the retail industry, in particular in toys, electronics, apparel, appliances, sporting goods and furniture. The compressed calendar leaving only 26 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, compared to 31 last year; stock market gains, and less uncertainty in the air now that the presidential election has been decided have also motivated consumers to shop earlier than last year.
But Salesforce reported that U.S. sales online grew 8 percent to $8.1 billion on Thanksgiving, which is $2 billion more than what Adobe reported. While online shopping was good, it’s unclear just how good it was given the difference in the online sales reports issued by Adobe and Salesforce. Differences are due to different methodologies, i.e. the size of the shopper base researched, involved in tabulating the results.
Globally, online sales on Thanksgiving grew 6 percent to $33.6 billion, Salesforce indicated. For Black Friday, Salesforce predicted that U.S. online sales would reach $17.7 billion, and $71.5 billion globally.
Salesforce indicated to WWD that its analysis is based on more than 1.5 billion global shoppers, more than 1.5 trillion page views and hundreds of millions of stock keeping units from 89 countries. “Our data models and algorithms extrapolate to mimic the entire commerce industry as a whole. The calculations we use blend first-party and third-party data, as well as several market assumptions, to generate the data points we present,” a Salesforce representative told WWD. “Our comparison data set is filtered for several factors to control for outliers, but our numbers include whatever market factors are taking place at that time, such as inflation.”
Adobe indicated that its data reported is based on analyzing commerce transactions online, covering more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million skus and 18 product categories. “Adobe Analytics is relied upon by the majority of the top 100 internet retailers in the U.S. to deliver and measure shopping experiences online,” the company said in a statement.
Adobe expects consumers will spend a record $10.8 billion online on Black Friday, up 9.9 percent year-over-year. There is a noticeable return to the use of doorbusters to attract early bird shoppers.
Cyber Monday will remain the year’s biggest online shopping day, driving what is expected to be a record $13.2 billion in spend, up 6.1 percent year-over-year, according to Adobe. The majority of U.S. consumers will shop online from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., accounting for 42 percent of all online Black Friday shopping, Adobe predicted.
Cyber Week — the five days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday — is expected to drive $40.6 billion in online spend, up 7 percent year-over-year, representing 16.9 percent of the overall holiday season, Adobe forecast.
In other Adobe observations, mobile shopping hit “an all-time high” on Thanksgiving, accounting for 59.5 percent of online sales, or $3.6 billion, up 10.5 percent year-over-year, Adobe reported. The most online activity occurred between 8 and 10 p.m. Thursday night. The software giant also reported that many consumers were opting for more expensive items, particularly in electronics, sporting goods, appliances, toys and personal care products.
“Cyber Week is off to a strong start, where bigger-than-expected discounts on Thanksgiving propelled impulse shopping in categories like electronics and apparel,” Vivek Pandya, lead analyst, Adobe Digital Insights, said in a statement Friday. “As people gathered with family and friends, many were hitting the buy button on their mobile devices, which hit an all-time high for the overall holiday season.”
Regarding bestsellers on the day, Adobe listed several, but specifically in soft goods, it was all about accessories, smartwatches, skin care sets and makeup products, loungewear and pajamas, and bedding and linen sets. Adobe also cited increases in chat bot usage for shopping assistance, and in consumers taking advantage of buy now, pay later programs.
Adobe maintained that the sales gains are more about increased demand than inflation. Adobe’s Digital Price Index shows e-commerce prices have fallen consecutively for 26 months and were down 2.9 percent, year-over-year as of last October.
Black Friday is still the most important day of shopping for most retailers, but it doesn’t generate the huge crowds of the past due to stores running Black Friday promotions well in advance of the actual day.
A report from MRI software indicated strong in-store shopping in New York City on Black Friday. As of noon Friday, pedestrian traffic in the city’s retail hubs was up 9.1 percent compared with last week and 3 percent higher than Black Friday last year, “showing a very encouraging start post-Thanksgiving,” said Jenni Matthews, head of marketing for on location and footfall analytics at MRI, which provides software for real estate owners, operators and investors. “Shopping malls [in the city] appear to have hit the ground running, with pedestrian traffic up until 12 p.m., 67.6 percent higher compared to last week and 1.9 percent higher than Black Friday in 2023. This should provide retailers with optimism as consumers look to grab some holiday bargains and really get into the festive spirit, making the most of the events, markets and attractions in retail hubs,” Matthews said.
The ICSC forecasts that 241 million consumers, 6 million more than in 2023, will be shopping for gifts. The trade organization is also projecting a 3 percent to 3.5 percent retail sales gains this holiday season, which is consistent with projections from other research organizations and retail analysts, generally forecasting 2 to 4 percent gains.
The mood was upbeat among many specialty store retailers, which posted unexpectedly strong sales during the unofficial kickoff of the 2024 holiday season.
“I’m beyond happy,” said Chris Riccobono, founder of Untuckit, which operates 89 stores across the U.S. as well as a robust online business. “It was amazing.”
He said the company intentionally launched its planned promotional sale a week early this year and was worried that the aggressive stance of some competitors, which could be as high as 70 percent off all merchandise sitewide, might take a bite out of Untuckit’s business. But that turned out not to be the case.
“We held the same discount as we have for the past 13 years,” Riccobono said, with select items being offered at 50 and 60 percent off regular retail. “You can’t survive if you’re the only one not on sale,” he said, adding, “We comped up pretty significantly both in our stores and online. They’re not always in sync, but in this case, it was pretty even.”
The performance also put to rest the anxiety he felt earlier this year when business was softer prior to the election. “But everything was great last week — maybe they were just waiting for the election to end.”
Among the bestsellers in men’s were the wrinkle-free Veneto shirt program, the Hemsworth flannel shirt, the wrinkle-free Cadetto shirt, the Lawrence shirt, the Cord shirt, the Archer sweater flannel and the Traveler pant program. While Untuckit is primarily a men’s brand, the company’s women’s business also held its own with the Bella program and the Lexie Sequin shirtdress among the top performers.
Looking ahead, Riccobono is hopeful that the momentum will continue through December. “It’s held for eight days in a row so we feel like it’ll be a great holiday season.”
Ken Ohashi, chief executive officer of Brooks Brothers, was similarly upbeat.
“Our full-price retail was strong the last month and we experienced the same trend during Black Friday,” he said, with both the retail stores and the e-commerce site performing similarly well. “They were neck and neck,” he said, “And we have significantly less clearance than last year,” meaning fewer promotions. “We’re pretty clean and our gross margin and maintained margin are up, so we’re feeling good.”
As a result, the company moved some of the dollars it had previously spent on affiliate marketing to more traditional advertising vehicles such as billboards, television and out-of-home ads. “And it’s helping us,” he said.
Among the top sellers were “holiday dressing” pieces and formalwear, which were the categories the company focused on in this year’s holiday campaign. Elevated sportswear in sweaters and knits also did well.
Despite the “compressed calendar this year,” Ohashi said he expects the strong performance to continue throughout the next month. “The stores that we recently expanded or are in new markets all performed very well,” he said, pointing to the larger Rockefeller Center store in New York City, as well as the Wisconsin Avenue unit in Washington, D.C., and Newbury Street in Boston. “They all performed well,” he said. “Newbury Street in particular has been on fire and four out of five people there have never shopped with us before.”
As a result, Ohashi said he’s “not stressed going into the first quarter in terms of inventory,” and believes 2025 will also be a strong year for the company.
Nate Checketts, CEO of Rhone, said his company had a strong kickoff to the holiday season, too. “We had record-setting days in all channels,” he said. He and his cofounder and brother Ben Checketts both hit stores over the weekend — in L.A. and Boston, respectively — and personally experienced the heightened foot traffic this year. “We feel very good about how the holiday has started.”
He said that in addition to strength in a new menswear product called the Coldspell Commuter Pant, which features a brushed flannel lining for warmth, Rhone was pleased with the performance of its newly launched women’s collection. “We saw higher ‘mixed baskets,’ of people buying both men’s and women’s,” he said.
Rhone stuck to its planned promotions of 25 percent off select products, despite the fact that its competitors were running 30 percent or higher sales. “But we’ve run the same promotions for the last four years,” he said, “and we did the same thing this year.”
Looking ahead, Checketts said he is encouraged by the fact that “consumers are starting to come back in a stronger way after a year of uncertainty and a post-election cycle. It’s been a crazy couple of years.” But with the strength of Black Friday weekend as a backdrop he’s hopeful the momentum will be “pulled forward” to Cyber Monday and the remainder of the season.
Bob Mitchell, co-CEO of Mitchells Stores, which operates luxury units under the Mitchells, Richards, Wilkes Bashford and Marios names on the East and West Coasts, said that despite Thanksgiving being a week later than last year, when he compared the two, the business in 2024 is very strong.
“We just capped off a record, double-digit November and we’re off to a double-digit start for the holiday season,” he said. “Men’s has come on strong in the last few weeks,” particularly tailored clothing – especially sport coats — and sportswear. New spring deliveries have also started to check, he said. In women’s, “while ready-to-wear is up, we’re also seeing nice growth in handbags and jewelry, which has been the star.”
As far as top performers in the luxury category, he said it was the usual suspects such as Brunello Cucinelli, Zegna, Loro Piana, Brioni, Canali, Akris and The Row that were strong, while Fedeli and Baldessari did well in the mid-tier.
Although he was reluctant to characterize the season as a success this early, Mitchell is upbeat. “The real numbers don’t start for us until 10 days before, so this could all be a mirage,” he said with a laugh. “But the customer is in a very good mood with how the [stock] market is performing and Bitcoin. So we expect it will be a good season.”
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