This year's Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales were very strong, after a few slow months for retail sales. The US is facing inflation not seen in decades, and a cost-of-living crisis is forcing people to cut their spending across continents - Europe was especially hit with looming recession and a raging energy crisis. Nevertheless, the holiday season prediction for the US was cautiously optimistic, and the first data suggest this optimism was correct.
Consumers are not the only group under pressure this year.. Retailers' planning was also greatly affected by the general economic volatility of the last 3 years, with covid lockdowns hugely disrupting supply chains and the war in Ukraine putting pressure on the energy sector and beyond. US retailers tried to learn from the troubles of the COVID pandemic and built up a significant stock of inventories. This resulted in the struggle to sell them this year - leading to special discounts.
This year's Black Friday was a record in terms of sales in US dollars. Estimates of sales growth range from 5 percent to 12 annually, as indicated by credit card data. Nominal growth was strongly influenced by inflation, and these numbers cannot answer questions about volume/real growth. Some of the indicators however point to good performance beyond increasing prices. The National Retail Federation survey, for example, suggests that the physical number of shoppers was at a record high reaching 197 million.
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