Online shopping expected to hit record thanks to Black Friday

​​​​​​​By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - Online shopping transactions are expected to see a historical high thanks to Black Friday, an Adobe report forecasted Friday.

Digital spending on Thanksgiving soared 5% year-on-year, reaching $6.4 billion and exceeding Adobe’s expectations, according to an ABC News report.

The Thanksgiving holiday in the US is the last Thursday in November. The following day, Black Friday, is a major shopping day that unofficially starts the shopping season for Christmas. Retailers dubbed it Black Friday because that is when they would turn their negative profits for the year from red into the black on that day.

The company expects Black Friday shoppers to set a record, outpacing last year's total by more than 8%.

Adobe said the strong performance on Thanksgiving was related to better-than-anticipated discounts, especially for electronics.

"Given the strength of Thanksgiving deals, Adobe is adjusting its discount forecast for the big shopping days coming up.

"Deals are now expected to be on par with the elevated levels seen in the last holiday shopping season," said Adobe.

It said the magnitude of discounts was the big story on Thanksgiving on Thursday, as retailers leaned into delivering great deals to drive consumer demand online, said Vivek Pandya, an analyst at Adobe Digital Insights.

"This was further propped up by impulse-led mobile shopping and the use of generative AI, which assisted shoppers in locating the best deals, two trends that helped deliver higher-than-expected overall spend on Thanksgiving," he added.