Fewer American consumers flocked online on Black Friday this year than last. Online commerce was down 7%, according to Similarweb’s analysis of the top 716 e-commerce sites. Shoppers were less inclined towards apparel, furniture, luxury items, and entertainment; instead, they purchased ground travel, airfare, cruise reservations, and groceries more than last year.
Amazon remained the top e-commerce website, with an increase of website traffic of 2% from last year, with over 100 million visits. Walmart came in second place with just over 25 million visits, which decreased traffic by 10%. Among the top 15 websites, only Costco and Lowes reported increased traffic compared to 2022.
Notably, the shopping app Temu did not make the top 15 sites visited on Black Friday despite being the No. 1 downloaded app in the United States. It did receive a 91% increase in unique visitors on the shopping holiday, which was less than 10 million. Meanwhile, Amazon saw almost 60 million unique views.
This analysis from Similarweb does not include data from Cyber Monday, which happens the Monday after Black Friday.
Black Friday followed the Bureau of Economic Analysis report that annual inflation had fallen to 3% in October. While this is the lowest inflation has been in almost three years, it is still above the Federal Reserve’s goal of 2%.
However, the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index decreased to 61.3 in November, down from nearly 64 in October, demonstrating a wariness among shoppers. Last year, the sentiment was eight points lower than November’s index.
