Consumers, how are we feeling?

This past weekend’s shopping numbers are in. And to quickly recap: an estimated 166 million Americans hunted for a come-up, then popped some tags with only a little money in their pocket. Someplace somewhere, Macklemore must be proud.

🤿 Diving into the numbers: This year saw the biggest Black Friday sales day… well, ever. Online shoppers spent a record $9.12 billion, according to Adobe Analytics, a 2.3% increase over last year.

And if there was a winner’s podium for the past weekend, Thanksgiving would be standing at #2 – though Saturday and Sunday weren’t far behind.

Turkey Day pulled in an all-time high of $5.29 billion in online sales, up 2.9% year-over-year, while consumers spent an estimated $4.52 billion on Saturday and $4.99 billion on Sunday. For context, online shoppers typically spend about $2 billion to $3 billion per day.

What are people spending all that extra moolah on, you ask?

• The most popular items this weekend were electronics (sales up 221% over an average day in October), exercise equipment (218%), and toys (285%).
• Mobile shopping was also a big winner. Black Friday shoppers made 48% of all online purchases via smartphones, an all-time record and increase from 44% last year.

🤔🛍 Big picture: While these numbers may be a promising indicator for retailers overall, warning signs remain aplenty. Consumer sentiment has weakened in the past month, and still-high inflation is increasingly driving consumers to dip into savings or fund purchases with credit.

Per data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the personal savings of Americans hit $626 billion in the third quarter of this year, down from $4.85 trillion in Q2 2020. Which seems to be leading many folks to put this year’s gifts on their tab – Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) orders rose 78% during Nov. 19-25 compared to the week prior.

📊 Flash poll: Has inflation impacted your holiday shopping so far this year? Click one of the links below to vote. The best long-form responses to the question will be featured in tomorrow's newsletter.

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