The coronavirus pandemic has reshaped the 2020 holiday shopping season, with more people buying gifts online and fewer visiting stores. Retailers pushed discounts into October and put their Black Friday deals online. The big shift to e-commerce will test shipping networks in December.
The Wall Street Journal is tracking how consumers are spending their money this year. See how the holiday retail season is unfolding below.
Credit Cards
Data from credit-card transactions show that while shoppers are spending about the same amount of money in person as they did last year, they are spending more online. On Black Friday, electronics stores saw almost four times as much revenue from online credit-card purchases as they did in 2019.
Other data trackers say U.S. shoppers are spending less than last year. According to a survey by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics, consumers spent an average of just under $312 on holiday-related purchases from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, down 14% from 2019 but on par with 2018.
