Online sales top $5 billion on Black Friday

There were plenty of crowds on Black Friday, but the shoppers that stayed home and took advantage of online sales is on the rise, CNN reported.

American shoppers spent a record $5 billion online in 24 hours, an increase of 16.9 percent in dollars spent on the internet from Black Friday in 2016. Those figures were released by Adobe Digital Insights, which tracks 80 percent of online spending at the 100 largest retail websites in the United States, CNN reported.

Amazon said Friday that orders were being placed “at record levels,” with more than 200,000 toys sold in the first five hours of the day, CNN reported. Amazon did not provide sales figures for the entire day.

While sales boomed online, purchases at malls and large retailers remained strong, CNN reported. Estimates from ShopperTrak, a data analytics company that measures the number of shoppers at stores, said sales at those outlets decreased “less than 1 percent” compared to Black Friday in 2016, CNN reported.

Adobe predicts that Cyber Monday will be even bigger than Black Friday, bringing in as much as $6 billion in digital sales, CNN reported.

ShopperTrak was optimistic for the holiday shopping season, since there are four Saturdays in December before Christmas. ShopperTrak added that after Black Friday, Dec. 23 and Dec. 16 -- both Saturdays -- will be the second and third busiest shopping days of the season.

Cox Media Group