Following a record-setting day for Thanksgiving ecommerce sales, consumers spent $11.8 billion online on Black Friday 2025. That’s the first time that Black Friday online sales reached or exceeded $11 billion, setting a new record for the fourth straight year.
It’s also 9.1% year-over-year growth from Black Friday 2024, according to analysis from Adobe Analytics. The result was down slightly from the 10.2% growth seen a year ago.
Since at least 2014, Black Friday ecommerce sales have increased annually except in 2021.
Black Friday ecommerce sales have more than tripled in 2025 compared to 10 years earlier, when they reached $3.54 billion. Additionally, they’ve increased by more than $2.7 billion since 2020, “when the COVID-19 pandemic drove a substantial step change in Black Friday ecommerce,” Adobe said.
Adobe Analytics data is based on more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories, according to the company. 215 online retailers in the Top 2000 use Adobe Analytics for their web analytics, and 106 use it for site design and development. Top 1000 online retailers also use it for content delivery and management, as an ecommerce platform, a marketing platform, for personalization and more.
Salesforce draws on global shopping data from billions of consumers through its Agentforce Commerce, Marketing and Service platform. In North America, 78 of the Top 2000 online retailers use Salesforce as their ecommerce platform.
The Top 2000 is Digital Commerce 360’s database of North America’s largest online retailers based on annual ecommerce sales and more.
Black Friday sales’ shift to becoming ‘a major ecommerce moment’
On a day traditionally known for in-store shopping, U.S. consumers spent a combined $12.5 million in ecommerce sales every minute, on average, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Black Friday 2025. And by 6:30 p.m. Eastern, they had spent a combined $8.6 billion online.
More than half of Black Friday’s online sales — $6.5 billion (or 55.2%) — came from mobile devices.
The record digital spending indicates “Black Friday has cemented its role as a major ecommerce moment,” Adobe said.
Data from pass_by, which tracked foot traffic at U.S. retail locations on Black Friday, found that consumers visited physical stores 1.17% more in 2025 than in 2024. Department stores saw a 7.9% increase in foot traffic, whereas the health and beauty sector’s foot traffic declined 7.7%, according to pass_by data.
“We aren’t seeing the frantic revenge-spending of previous years, but crucially, we aren’t seeing a recessionary retreat either,” said James Ewen, vice president of marketing at pass_by, in a statement. “This data paints a picture of an American shopper who is resilient but highly calculated, they are still showing up to physical stores, but their movement is driven by necessity and specific value rather than broad impulse.”
Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said the Cyber 5 is “off to a strong start” as online sales during Thanksgiving and Black Friday each exceeded the company’s forecasts. The Cyber 5 refers to the five-day period from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday.
“This was driven in large part by competitive deals across categories like electronics, toys, and apparel,” Pandya said. “Discounts are set to remain elevated through Cyber Monday, which we expect will remain the biggest online shopping day of the season and year.”
Generative AI and BNPL’s impacts on Black Friday 2025 ecommerce sales
At the same time, traffic to U.S. retail sites from artificial intelligence (AI) sources increased 805% year over year on Black Friday. Consumers embraced generative AI chat services and browsers to find Black Friday deals and research products, Adobe said.
The categories consumers used AI tools for more on Black Friday were:
- Video games
- Appliances
- Electronics
- Toys
- Personal care products
- Baby/toddler products
Moreover, Adobe found that shoppers who used generative AI services to reach products on a retailer’s page were 38% more likely to complete their sales than shoppers arriving at such sites from all other sources, such as social media.
Meanwhile, social media generated 3.4% of all online sales on Black Friday. That’s a 54.5% year-over-year increase, which compares to a 2.2% share and flat growth in 2024. Affiliates and partners (such as social media influencers) drove 21.9% of revenue, growing 11.7%. That’s up from a 19.6% share on 5.4% growth in 2024.
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) usage increased 8.9% year over year on Black Friday 2025. It drove $747.5 million in ecommerce spending, or about 6.3% of all digital sales on Black Friday.
And the vast majority of it — 80.7% — happened on mobile devices. Adobe found that consumers were most likely to use BNPL options to purchase electronics, apparel, toys and furniture. It anticipates BNPL will account for $1.04 billion on Cyber Monday, which would represent 5% year-over-year growth.
Digital payments provider PayPal said BNPL transactions through its platform increased 23% year over year from Monday, Nov. 24, through Thanksgiving. Among small- and medium-sized businesses, BNPL transactions increased 17% year over year.
Black Friday’s impact on global online sales in 2025
Globally, Black Friday drove $79 billion in online sales, according to Salesforce. That marks 6% year-over-year growth.
Additionally, Salesforce data puts Black Friday online sales in the U.S. at $18 billion in 2025, which is 3% growth by its metrics.
Generative AI and agents drove $14.2 billion in global online sales on Black Friday, Salesforce found. In the U.S., that was $3 billion.
Salesforce also said AI and agents “influenced” $7.5 billion in Thanksgiving online sales globally and $1.5 billion that day in the U.S. In other words, even when consumers aren’t directly navigating to retailers’ sites from those sources (such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and the AI search platform Perplexity), they’re still using them to conduct product research.
Furthermore, Salesforce data indicates that conversations on agentic AI services increased 42% on Black Friday compared to Thanksgiving Day. And AI agents’ actions, such as updating delivery addresses or initiating returns, increased 38%.
AI and agents are amplifying buying intent, said Caila Schwartz, director of consumer insights at Salesforce.
“This holiday season proves that AI is no longer a tool for just cost-cutting — it’s a massive revenue engine,” she said.
Black Friday ecommerce sales through Shopify
The ecommerce platform Shopify reported that its merchants generated $6.2 billion in global online sales on Black Friday 2025. That’s a 25% year-over-year increase, it said.
At its peak, consumers spent $5.1 million per minute at 12:01 Eastern. That’s up from $4.6 million the prior year, it said.
Its top-selling countries were the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and Canada. The U.S. accounted for four of the five top-selling cities, which were:
- Los Angeles
- New York
- London
- San Francisco
- Philadelphia
Shopify merchants’ average order value (AOV) on Black Friday reached $117.93. The top-selling product categories on the platform were cosmetics, clothing tops, activewear, fitness and nutrition, and pants.
Additionally, 17% of the platform’s orders were cross-border sales. However, only 7% of U.S.-based Shopify merchants’ orders were cross-border sales.
Click here to read last year’s update on Black Friday ecommerce sales.
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