Black Friday
Black Friday Statistics
Below are estimated retail sales statistics for Black Friday. Please note these are for the day of Black Friday and not for the entire sales weekend.
2019 Black Friday Statistics
Total Estimated Online Sales: $7.4 billion usd
2018 Black Friday Statistics
Total Estimated Online Sales: $6.2 billion usd
2017 Black Friday Statistics
Total Estimated Online Sales: $5.0 billion usd
2016 Black Friday Statistics
Total Estimated Online Sales: $3.34 billion usd
2015 Black Friday Statistics
Total Estimated Online Sales:$2.74 billion usd
2014 Black Friday Statistics
Total Estimated Online Sales:$1.51 billion usd
2013 Black Friday Statistics
Total Estimated Online Sales:$1.35 billion usd
2012 Black Friday Statistics
Total Estimated Online Sales:$1.04 billion usd
2011 Black Friday Statistics
Total Estimated Online Sales:$816 million usd
Black Friday Weekend Sales Statistics from National Retail Federation
The National Retail Federation releases a survey every year following the Black Friday Weekend with between 2,300 and 4,850 American consumers (the number varies from year to year) to estimate how many people went shopping over the weekend, the average amount spent per person, and the total amount of retail spending. The data below is from these surveys by the National Retail Federation.
| Year | Black Friday Date | Shoppers (in millions) | Average Spent per Person (in millions, usd) | Total Spent (in usd) | Number of Consumers Polled | Survey Publish Date | Survey Margin of Error | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | November 29th | |||||||
| 2018 | November 23rd | |||||||
| 2017 | November 24th | 174,000,000 | $335.47 | $58,300,000,000 | 3,242 | November 28th | ± 1.7% | |
| 2016 | November 25th | |||||||
| 2015 | November 27th | |||||||
| 2014 | November 28th | 233,000,000 | $380.95 | $50,900,000,000 | 4,631 | November 30th | ± 1.5% | |
| 2013 | November 29th | 249,000,000 | $407.02 | $57,400,000,000 | 4,864 | December 1st | ± 1.7% | |
| 2012 | November 23rd | 247,000,000 | $423.66 | $59,100,000,000 | 4,005 | November 25th | ± 1.6% | |
| 2011 | November 25th | 226,000,000 | $398.62 | $52,500,000,000 | 3,826 | November 27th | ± 1.6% | |
| 2010 | November 26th | 212,000,000 | $365.34 | $45,000,000,000 | 4,306 | November 28th | ± 1.5% | |
| 2009 | November 27th | 195,000,000 | $343.31 | $41,200,000,000 | 4,985 | November 29th | ± 1.4% | |
| 2008 | November 28th | 172,000,000 | $372.57 | $41,000,000,000 | 3,370 | November 30th | ± 1.7% | |
| 2007 | November 23rd | 147,000,000 | $347.55 | $34,600,000,000 | 2,395 | November 25th | ± 1.5% | |
| 2006 | November 24th | 140,000,000 | $360.15 | $34,400,000,000 | 3,090 | November 26th | ± 1.5% | |
| 2005 | November 25th | 132,000,000 | $301.81 | $26,800,000,000 | November 27th |
Note that this data does not contain Cyber Monday data.
Black Friday History
Black Friday is an annual single-day shopping holiday in the USA taking place on the Friday following Thanksgiving Day. The holiday is used by American consumers to purchase gifts for loved ones for the upcoming Christmas holiday. Black Friday is also the start of what is referred to as “The Marketing Gauntlet” a series of shopping holidays and other important dates that cause retail and consumer marketers to work more hours than usual managing and launching campaigns. The holiday also signals the beginning of “Black Friday Weekend” and sometimes the press and others confuse data between the two of these.
The first known usage of the term Black Friday occurred in 1951 in the journal Factory Management and Maintenance, where it defined the practice of factory workers calling in sick the day after Thanksgiving Day to continue spending time with their families. The journal is known to have made this reference again in 1952, but after that, the term Black Friday disappeared from the American lexicon for nearly a decade. In 1961 the term resurfaced in the city of Philadelphia, PA where it was once again used to describe some form of chaos caused by the holiday, but this time instead of describing a large number of factory workers being absent and impacting production, the term was used by the Philadelphia Police Department to describe the suddenly overwhelming volume of vehicle and pedestrian traffic.
It wouldn’t be until the early 1980’s that merchants in the same city (Philadelphia) began to see Black Friday as a positive and the day began to be associated with retailers going from “in the red” to “in the black”, common parlance meaning that prior to this day a retail shop may have been losing money for the year, but this day marks the beginning of profitability.
As the retail holiday spread nationwide local retailers began to jostle for the best deals on this day and it became common for stores to open earlier than usual to allow shoppers to get to the deals before other consumers in their local area. Most stores set this time to 6:00am local time. It stayed this way until the ecommerce revolution of the internet began to cut into retailer’s sales and by the late 2000’s many retailers were opening their doors at 5:00 am or even 4:00am local time.
In 2011, feeling the sales pinch, numerous major local retail chains decided to open at midnight for the first time. The following year, 2012, as retailers again looked for an upper-hand against growing internet sales and online retail giant Amazon, several declared they would start their Black Friday sales at 8:oopm local time on Thanksgiving Day. Black Friday had gone from being an extra day of rest for factory workers, to a public nuisance, to a day that made retails profitable, to a public recognition of the start of Christmas shopping, to now imposing on worker’s time with their families on a major National Holiday.
Today several states have banned retail stores from opening to ensure workers get to rest and spend time with loved ones on Thanksgiving Day.
References
https://www.practicalecommerce.com/Sales-Report-2015-Thanksgiving-Day-Black-Friday-Cyber-Monday
https://www.practicalecommerce.com/Sales-Report-2016-Thanksgiving-Day-Black-Friday-Cyber-Monday
https://www.adobe.com/experience-cloud/digital-insights/holiday-shopping-report.html
https://www.statista.com/chart/7045/thanksgiving-weekend-e-commerce-sales/
https://www.webfx.com/blog/marketing/data-5-years-black-friday-cyber-monday-sales/
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2008-April/081342.html
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2011-May/109292.html
https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/the-origins-of-black-friday/