Spreading out the spending: Retail spending surges by 5.2% year-on-year during the Black-Friday week, with less spending concentrated on the Black Friday itself

2. December 2024

Black Friday marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Data from Monitoring Consumption Switzerland in the merchant category Retail: Other Goods reveals that sales in the Black Friday week increased by an impressive 55% relative to the previous week, reaching the highest weekly turnover for this year. On Black Friday itself, November 29, sales were 2.1 times the level of the previous Friday. The numbers include payments with credit cards, debit cards and mobile payments at the point-of-sale as well as in e-commerce.

Compared to 2023, sales on Black Friday itself are lower (-9%). Comparing the whole Black-Friday week (Monday to Saturday 2024) to the same days in 2023, however, we find that the total turnover increased in nominal terms by 5.2%. This suggests that turnover has been concentrated less on a single day but has been more spread out during Black-Friday week.

Figure 1 illustrates these findings by displaying the indexed nominal daily turnover. A value of 100 indicates that the daily turnover is equal to the average daily turnover in the merchant category Retail: Other Goods in November 2023. The indexed value for the Black Friday on November 29, 2024, is 215.6, which is 9% smaller than the value of 236.9 on the Black Friday in the previous year on November 24, 2023.  Accounting for inflation between November 2023 and 2024 may imply a slightly smaller gap of expenditures in real terms because prices fell in some important expenditure categories. For clothing and shoes that are contained in the category Retail: Other Goods, for example, the inflation rate between November 2023 and 2024 was -1.03%.[1]  

Black Friday 2024 | Tableau Public (Interactive Dynamic Dashboard)

Figure 1: Daily sales in non-food retail with payment cards (debit/credit cards) and mobile payments, November 2020-2024

Note: indexed values; 100 =  average daily turnover in November 2023.

Similarly to previous years, the Black Friday 2024 also saw more sales in e-commerce. Figure 1 shows that the share of e-commerce in the Retail: Other Goods category increased to 24% on Friday November 29, 2024, compared to 15% in the previous week. Compared to the previous year, however, the share of e-commerce sales on Black Friday dropped from 27% to 24%. Thus, the share of sales at the point of sale increased on Black Friday 2024 (November 29) relative to Black Friday 2023 (November 24). 

These figures suggest that city centers and shopping malls have an enduring appeal as prime retail locations, despite the looming threat posed by e-commerce. Furthermore, the increase of turnover on the weekdays before Black Friday suggest that retailers may offer price discounts already well before Black Friday either to avoid too much congestion or for marketing purposes.

[1] Source: BFS – Swiss Consumer Price Index in October 2024 (COICOP for clothing and shoes).