The holiday shopping behavior of U.S. consumers continues to evolve, but online shoppers are still setting records on the traditional Black Friday and Cyber Monday event days. According to Adobe Analytics, U.S. shoppers spent $9.1 billion online on Friday, Nov. 25 and $11.3 billion the following Monday—both record tallies.
While e-commerce merchants have begun to offer deals ever earlier in the season, consumers are still shopping online on Cyber Monday—and to a slightly lesser extent on Black Friday—in enormous numbers. As always, fraud is a concern at this time of year because the higher volume of transactions makes it easier for bad actors to hide fraud attacks.
According to antifraud technology provider Sift, account takeover attacks spiked on Black Friday, as attack rates surged 124 percent compared to the average for 2022.
One reason e-commerce is thriving in the face of higher prices during the 2022 holidays is that consumers are turning increasingly to Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) to finance their purchases. Adobe’s data indicates that BNPL transactions were up 78 percent during the week of Nov. 19-25 compared with the average for the rest of 2022 and up 81 percent from the week before.