Black Friday Shopping Trends 2024

After earning a reputation for causing some chaos at brick-and-mortar outlets, Black Friday sales are shifting online more recently. One survey found one in three (36%) planned to reduce their in-store shopping this year. This is no surprise given the convenience and choice offered by internet shopping outlets – not to mention the notable speed, efficiency and security of mobile payments, which consumers now show an increasing preference for.

At Checkout.com, we’ve seen a boost in consumer spending over the Thanksgiving holiday period this year compared with last year. This aligns with the 71% of US consumers who planned to shop at online-only retailers in 2024. In this data deep-dive, we’re looking at the Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) shopping that took place online over November 29 to December 2. 

Sectors that benefitted the most during Black Friday were online clothing retailers, food delivery services, and sellers of digital goods. This trading period is vitally important for merchants in the leisure, entertainment, gaming, and hospitality sectors. Yet the intensity of competition between businesses can mean it’s hard to win your share of holiday spending. Studying consumer buying patterns – including purchasing preferences among different types of customers – can help.

Let’s look at a breakdown of spending trends we saw during BFCM 2024.

Younger shoppers fuelling holiday season revenue online

• A significant 67% of Gen Z shoppers said they expect to shop more online this year
• Three in four Gen Z said they’re likely to buy something on Black Friday 2024
• Two thirds of Gen Zs do not regularly shop in physical stores
• One in three adolescents in the US regularly shop on an entertainment app 

Having suddenly shifted life’s daily activities online during their formative teenage years due to the COVID pandemic, Gen Z is accustomed to using the internet to access key services, activities, and lifestyle experiences. While Millennials are considered the first “digital native” generation, Gen Z and younger are likely to have first used social media from a younger age than Millennials. 

This means for Gen Z, the smartphone – and its easy access to online marketplaces, shopping apps, streaming services, and superapps (that let you order food, book travel, manage funds, and more) – have been at the center of life since childhood. It stands to reason that shopping increasingly looks like scrolling through a digital feed, rather than leaving the house to browse a bricks-and-mortar store.

Shopping via digital entertainment and gaming apps 

Surrounded by options for electronic escapism, younger consumers are more likely to view entertainment apps as a chance to spend money than older adults. For instance, our research found one in three (33%) children in the US (aged between 8 and 15) regularly use a digital entertainment or gaming app as a shopping channel. While somewhat less popular among adolescents in other countries, digital entertainment or gaming apps are still a regular shopping channel for two in five (22%) children in China, and a quarter (25%) of youngsters in the United Arab Emirates.

Our research finds that older age groups are less likely than younger ones to use entertainment and gaming apps as shopping channels on a regular basis. This indicates that the trend towards shopping in this way will only increase over time, as these younger people grow up with a habit of making purchases while playing. 

This presents new revenue opportunities for innovative merchants selling digital content such as in-game upgrades, digital media subscriptions, and other web-enabled assets. 

BFCM payment methods and preferred shopping channels

• A considerable 72% of Millennials will rely on credit cards or buy now, pay later to fund BFCM shopping
• Mobile is the most popular device type for holiday season online shopping
• Three-quarters of adults in China most usually shop on social media

When thinking about which payment methods to offer your customers, you must first understand how they’re shopping. Which devices, shopping channels, and preferred payment types will all affect this. Believe it or not, customer demographics are highly relevant when it comes to preferred payment methods. Although no two customers are exactly the same, it can help to view customer segments that share common traits such as age, location, economics, lifestyle, and culture. The reason is, these factors heavily influence preferences and beliefs around technology, security, and expectations of shopping online.

In 2024, there’s a slight preference for holiday shopping via mobile devices (53%) compared with desktop and other (47%). This could reflect the increasingly blurred relationship between social media apps and shopping platforms, with digital wallets on phones making it easier to move between browsing apps and sending payments.

In China, three quarters of adults (74%) most usually shop on social media. This shows the importance of offering a smooth payment journey from social media scrolling to secure fund transfers. These payment flows benefit from device fingerprinting (which means collecting data that confirms the user is on a particular, recognizable device) and biometric authentication (such as a fingerprint scan or face ID) to enhance payment security while ensuring a speedy payment experience.

Spending increased over the BFCM weekend year-on-year

Black Friday is no longer the only discount day to watch. The Saturday and Sunday between Black Friday and Cyber Monday are seeing stronger sales volumes than ever before. This suggests consumers are increasingly viewing Black Friday as a multi-day sales event, rather than a one-off day to find deals. This is reflected in the variety of sales events we’re seeing online in November; customer spending shows Black Friday and Cyber Monday are no longer the only two days to watch and wait for.

Globally, the weekend is getting hotter. Saturday and Sunday after Black Friday are becoming bigger shopping days year over year

• 2021: Saturday spend was 59% of Friday spend, Sunday spend was 67% of Friday spend
• 2022: Saturday spend was 69% of Friday spend, Sunday spend was 72% of Friday spend
• 2023: Saturday spend was 72% of Friday spend, Sunday spend was 73% of Friday spend
• 2024: Saturday spend was 77% of Friday spend, Sunday spend was 78% of Friday spend.

Data notes: The first-party data in this blog is based on credit card or debit card payments processed online only.

Shopping with AI assistants over BFCM

• More than half of young people trust AI assistants when shopping
• Only two in five shoppers over age 35 trust AI for personalized recommendations
• Two in three merchants (66%) believe GenAI applications will have a significant impact on customer satisfaction this holiday season

With artificial intelligence (AI) as the breakout technology of the year, it’s noteworthy that more than half of consumers under age 35 are happy to use AI when shopping. Given artificial intelligence can serve thousands of customers at once, it’s an excellent opportunity to deliver personalization at scale. One of the main challenges will be the responsible collection of data from consumers. However, it’s surely a positive sign that the majority of younger consumers already accept it as a useful and trustworthy technology for making buying decisions. Research shows that more mature shoppers may need more convincing before they’re ready to use AI while shopping.

A somewhat surprising 58% of younger shoppers trust AI assistants for personalized recommendations. This drops to 42% of consumers over the age of 35. A further 53% of under 35-year-olds would use AI assistants to help them find the best deals (compared with just 36% of over-35s).

Global spending peaks: who’s shopping when?

While the appetite for seasonal sales is spreading around the world, culture certainly sways the timing of shoppers’ spending. Let’s take a look at when consumers around the world spent the most over the entire long weekend. 

Black Friday spenders

• United Kingdom spiked its spend at 9am on Black Friday
• Singapore spiked its spend at 6pm on Black Friday
• United States spiked at 8pm on Black Friday 

Cyber Sunday shoppers

• UAE spiked at 12 noon on Sunday 
• KSA spiked at 1pm on Sunday

Cyber Monday customers

• Italy spiked at 7pm on Cyber Monday
• Australia spiked at 9pm on Cyber Monday
• France spiked at 9pm on Cyber Monday
• Spain spiked at 9pm on Cyber Monday

You can use this data to plan your last-minute media and marketing campaigns to boost your holiday sales next year. Of course, it’s critical that your online payment systems are up and running throughout peak sales season. You can use multiple payment service providers to give yourself backup options for processing. This approach also allows you to compare the performance of different providers, so you can choose the one that best suits your business goals before peak selling season comes back around.

Data notes: This data is based on issuer location, i.e. it indicates where the customers are located. All times are local. “Spiked” indicates the one hour slot during which the highest volume of sales revenue was confirmed.

What are consumers buying online on Black Friday?

Customers’ purchasing priorities look different around the world. Where you are influences what you buy – according to our research. 

We’ve examined our payments data by merchant category description, to identify patterns in what was popular this Black Friday. 

Britain

Britons spent $4.6 bn online over BFCM, an increase of 5.2% year-on-year per Adobe, reported by Reuters. Of this, $1.12 bn was spent online during Black Friday, alone. This indicates UK consumers don’t see Black Friday as the only big spending day of the period. Merchants clearly understand this trend, with many beginning their sales events weeks in advance of the BFCM long weekend. Some retailers even extended their “Black Friday” discount period through to December. This makes the definition of Black Friday less clear, as it’s becoming more of a season in and of itself, rather than a clear-cut one-day event.

Top spending categories:

1. General retail and high street 
2. Professional services 
3. Department stores
4. Clothing 

In the UK, consumers lean towards spending on high street retailers, department stores and clothing. Shoppers with UK-issued payment cards see Black Friday as a prime opportunity to purchase clothes. That could be to look good at festive events and parties, as gifts for loved ones, or simply because retailers have lowered prices that day. 

The presence of general retail and high street as top spending categories could indicate Brits use Black Friday to buy gifts in the run-up to Christmas (which is celebrated widely in the country, with at least two Bank Holidays).

US

In the US, where Black Friday originated, the notorious shopping day saw stronger sales revenues compared with Cyber Monday. Black Friday itself saw 41.45% stronger revenue compared with the last Friday of October.

Top spending categories:

1. General retail and high street
2. Department stores
3. Leisure and entertainment; Digital goods (excludes games apps)
4. Leisure and entertainment; Digital goods (media, books, movies, music)

Like UK consumers, shoppers in the US spent the most at general retail and high street stores on Black Friday. Clothing is a priority spending category for both Brits and Americans. Merchants hoping to make sales to these two customer groups could take advantage of this identical appetite and run marketing campaigns for discount events in both markets at the same time. 

One notable difference we observe between US and UK consumers is that the former spent much more on digital forms of entertainment online this Black Friday. This is worth taking into account when you’re planning your next sales event for the US market: these shoppers want to take advantage of a Black Friday deal for their digital goods.  

United Arab Emirates

In the Middle East, Black Friday is more commonly known as White Friday, as we covered in our piece on ecommerce trends shaping holiday shopping. As Friday is a day of special religious importance in many Muslim nations, the White Friday seasonal shopping event can last for the four days over the final weekend in November.

Top spending categories:

1. Gift cards 
2. Fast food restaurants
3. Grocery stores and supermarkets
4. General retail and high street

The top purchase category was ”stored value card purchase or load” for non-financial institutions, a.k.a. purchases of gift cards or store cards. Whether consumers are loading cards to keep for themselves or preparing to give them as gifts, prepaid cards are certainly a valuable way for brands to improve customer loyalty – and potentially increase basket size at checkout.

We also saw online food purchases feature high on the spend priority list for UAE shoppers, with general retail and high street a lower priority than in Western nations.

Hong Kong

In general, Black Friday is less culturally significant in Hong Kong compared with Singles Day (a celebration of individuals not in a romantic relationship, observed on 11/11). However, consumers in Hong Kong spent twice as much on Black Friday as they did on the last Friday of the previous month. This indicates Black Friday is a very important online shopping day in Hong Kong.

Online shopping spiked in Hong Kong during the very first hour of Black Friday: midnight to 1am. We believe this is driven by the younger generation who tend to shop late at night. This goes hand-in-hand with the tendency of some merchants to start offering their seasonal deals at 00:00. Naturally, this pushes customers to start shopping right on time to ensure their most-wanted items are available.

Top spending categories:

1. Travel agencies and tour operators
2. Fast food restaurants
3. Leisure and entertainment; Digital goods (excludes games apps)
4. Clothing

We can see that, on Black Friday, shoppers in Hong Kong spent more on food and entertainment than their Western counterparts. This could be due to the vastly different ways in which consumers typically make day-to-day payments in each global region; it’s much more common for the average consumer in an East Asian nation such as Hong Kong (as well as China, South Korea, and Japan) to make payments via QR code. This would register as an online payment, which is why it’s made it into our stats. 

On the other hand, there is a similar appetite for digital entertainment goods in both Hong Kong and the US. This underscores the opportunity for online merchants to sell digital products to a global customer base that’s beginning to prioritize online spending. Both the number of users and the penetration rate of consumers shopping via digital channels are set to steadily increase  between 2024 and 2028. That means shopping on mobile devices will grow in popularity as younger generations make purchases in ways their parents would never have considered.

Data notes: This data is based on issuer location, i.e. it indicates where the customers are located. This year, Black Friday fell on the last working day of the month, which means pay day for many. Considerable spend went towards wire transfer money orders, and the like. For the purposes of focusing on consumers’ holiday spending, we have removed categories of fund transfer which relate to financial services (including wire transfers, currency exchange, and paying into financial products) from this dataset.

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