Brief - The Hustle

Why the Black Friday numbers were a little bit gray

Written by Jacob Cohen | Dec 3, 2021 9:16:21 AM

While there was a 1.4% dip in Cyber Monday sales, don’t be fooled — sales this season are through the roof.

From Nov. 1 through Cyber Monday, US consumers spent $109.8B online, up 11.9% from 2020’s levels, with the trend expected to keep pace through year-end.

It’s the result of a longer shopping period in which companies like Amazon started touting deals in October, and shoppers worried about things going out of stock, well, stocked up early.

Can’t blame ’em — out-of-stock messages across online stores were up 169% from pre-pandemic levels.