Black Friday Shopping Breaks Records in Stores and Online

$1 billion spent online on Thanksgiving Day alone

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Tomohiro Ohsumi / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Despite protests against Walmart and a national backlash over stores opening for customers on Thanksgiving day, this year’s Black Friday sales hit record-highs both in stores and online.

IBM reported that Black Friday online sales were up 20% over the same time last year, reaching record-breaking levels, according to Tech Crunch. Mobile consumption continued to rise with a 34% increase in traffic over last year’s Black Friday, with sales also improving and accounting for 21.8% of the day’s total online sales, a 43% increase year-over-year.

A record-breaking $1 billion was spent online on Thanksgiving day, according to an analysis by Adobe Systems, which examined 180 million visits to more than 1,000 retail sites. Sales on eBay.com shot up 35% through noon EST compared to the same time last year on Black Friday, according to e-commerce firm ChannelAdvisor. Amazon.com sales jumped 25% over the same period, USA Today reports.

Meanwhile, Walmart reported its best Black Friday ever, processing approximately 10 million register transactions during a four-hour window on Thursday night, CEO of Walmart USA Bill Simon announced, with in-store traffic and sales remaining strong throughout Friday. Online, the company claims it received 400 million pageviews. Walmart has been mired in controversy since workers rallied against the company for meager pay and remaining open on Thanksgiving. Protesters are asking for $25,000 as an annual minimum wage.

[USA Today]