Online the big winner of Black Friday  

Shoppers made history shopping online on Black Friday.

Black Friday shoppers spent $7.4 billion online, the second largest online shopping day ever, according to Adobe Analytics. The amount was second only to last year’s Cyber Monday, when shoppers spent $7.9 billion. (At publication time, the final tally for Cyber Monday 2019 was not yet available.)

The average order value per consumer on Black Friday was $168, up nearly 6% over last year.  According to Adobe, the hottest online sellers to-date, have included Frozen 2 toys, L.O.L Surprise Dolls and Paw Patrol in toys. Top video games and consoles include Madden 20, FIFA 20 and Nintendo Switch. Top selling electronics continue to be Samsung TVs, Apple Laptops and Amazon Echo.     

Online retailers were helped by challenging weather, which caused many consumers to turn to their computers (and, increasingly, mobile phones) to shop rather than venture out to physical stores. Indeed, shoppers' visits to brick-and-mortar stores was down 6.2%, according to ShopperTrak.

“In some areas of the country, adverse weather in the form of snow and heavy rain meant that many opted to stay home instead and grabbed the best deals online,” said Taylor Schreiner, principal analyst and head of Adobe Digital Insights. “Just look at Black Friday, which brought in $7.4 billion online and is just below last year’s Cyber Monday at $7.9 billion”

Adobe called Black Friday "the biggest day ever for mobile," with $2.9 billion in sales done via mobile phones and accounting for  39% of all e-commerce sales. The percentage of online traffic from smartphones rose 15.8% from last year to 61%.

Adobe estimates that the sales for the full holiday weekend (Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday) will top $29 billion, or 20% of total revenue for the full holiday season, up from 19% last year.   For the full holiday season (Nov.-Dec.), online spending is on track to hit $143.7 billion.