Black Friday is coming soon, and analysts are predicting it will be bigger than ever

Advertisement
Black Friday is coming soon, and analysts are predicting it will be bigger than ever

Black Friday 2018

Advertisement
  • Black Friday will take place on November 29 this year.
  • According to Adobe Analytics, retailers will pull in as much as $7.5 billion on Black Friday this year, a more than 20% increase over 2018.
  • Adobe Analytics is predicting that online shopping will "hit new highs" over the holiday season in general. However, retailers will also have to grapple with a shorter holiday shopping period and the fact that Christmas falls on a Wednesday.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Shoppers, brace yourselves. Black Friday is around the corner.

This year, America's most famous shopping day will fall on November 29, which is the day after Thanksgiving. And the experts at Adobe Analytics are expecting retailers to pull in as much as $7.5 billion in just one day. That's an increase of more than 20% over 2018.

While Adobe Analytics is expecting online shopping to "hit new highs" over the holiday season, it also said that retailers will be grappling with a shorter holiday shopping period this year. There are only 26 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, which works out to be about a week less than the same period in 2018.

Because of this, retailers could miss out on as much as $1 billion in revenue, Adobe Analytics said. This may cause retailers to start sales earlier than usual. Walmart, for example, began its holiday sales online on Friday - about a week earlier than it did last year - and sales will start in stores on November 1.

Advertisement

NPD analyst Marshal Cohen said that it's not only the shorter time period that retailers need to worry about. They are also likely to suffer from Christmas falling in the middle of the week, on a Wednesday, this year.

"It takes the pressure of Super Saturday away," Cohen told Business Insider's Hayley Peterson in a recent conversation. Super Saturday is the Saturday before Christmas Day, when many shoppers dash to stores to make last-minute purchases - and possibly spend more money because of the time crunch.

"Everybody sits there and says, 'Oh, I got a couple more days. I don't have to rush and fight the crowds.' That keeps people from fighting the frenzy, and the frenzy feeds the beast," he said.

Overall, he's expecting a "lackluster" holiday season in 2019.

{{}}