Black Friday 2025 just hit $11.8 billion in online sales... up 9.1% from last year. But Chris questions whether AI's 805% traffic surge is actually impressive or concerningly slow compared to other tech adoption curves. This segment, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, and Quorso, dives deep into what the numbers really mean.

Anne argues that 25% of purchases involving AI agents shows tremendous growth potential, especially since we can't even transact in these platforms yet. Chris counters by comparing AI adoption to buy-now-pay-later's 970% growth over three years, suggesting retailers should slow their roll on AI investments. Plus: Why are club stores crushing Black Friday traffic? And why is mobile still only 55% of purchases?

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#blackfriday #retailanalytics #aishopping #ecommerce #retaildata #holidayshopping #mobilecommerce #retailtrends

Black Friday saw a record $11.8 billion in online sales.

According to Adobe Analytics.

Black Friday online sales hit $11.8 billion, up 9.1% from last year, with mobile accounting for 55% of purchases and buy now, pay later accounting for almost $800 million of the online spend.

Other reporting services like MasterCard Spending Pulse corroborated these figures, noting a 10.4% growth in E commerce sales on Black Friday.

And finally, also According to Adobe, AI driven traffic to US retail sites soared 805% compared to last year.

Oh, man.

God, where to start?

You know, I've got a. I think a number of things stand out as I look at the statistics you just read, as well as other research I did, you know, to prepare for today's show.

I think, first of all, I'm not, I'm not surprised at all by the digital numbers.

Like you could take it to the bank.

It's going to happen.

And I feel like I've said this on past shows when we've been talking about Black Friday as well.

I think I've said it probably multiple times.

So the 10% bumps, not surprising, but it is surprising to see that that trajectory still still is consistently happening year over year.

So that's number one.

Number two, the clubs, man.

I don't know if you saw the data from Placer AI yesterday, but the clubs just crushed it.

The, the traffic numbers for Sam's Club, up 9.7%.

BJ's up, not 8.2%.

Costco 7.7%.

So people are finding value in the clubs.

Like, who would have ever thought clubs on Black Friday, like, that's kind of the last place I would want to be, you know, given, like, I don't even want to be there on a Saturday or Sunday.

You put the Black Friday traffic hell into it.

No way.

No.

Thank you.

But hey, I guess when you got to get those deals, then third, I still can't believe that mobile is only 50% of purchases.

I mean, that still tells me that there's a ton of room to go on our mobile devices here over the next few years.

Like 55%, 45% still happening away from a mobile device.

I mean, it's just like wow.

Okay.

And then last but not least, and I think I might surprise people here, and I think I might even surprise you a little bit.

I thought the growth in AI influenced shopping would be higher, 800% in basically what is year two to me seems really low.

And to prove that out, I looked at some comparables and I thought this was interesting.

So you mentioned BNPL in your opening.

So I look back at a, I look back at a CFBP report, PB report, CFPB report, I should say.

So, like, I just feel like, I feel like based on where agent AI is, an AI is in general and where it should be going, it feels like it should be moving faster.

Like, it just feels like it should be moving faster to me.

So makes me wonder if we need to start slowing our role on shopping these platforms.

And as I said last week as well, like, maybe we need to be a little more thoughtful and pragmatic and view these kind of engines as search amplifiers first and foremost, versus like connecting our business and all our apps to them, as we discussed last week.

That's kind of my, that's kind of my takeaway here from Black Friday.

I think it makes sense to be thoughtful and pragmatic.

But I mean, I think the biggest headline for me was that AI agents were involved in 25% of purchases.

25%.

That means like one in four people as they're shopping, whether they're on their desktop, on their mobile, like they were using an agent in some way, shape or form.

And I think that shows tremendous room to grow.

I mean, I looked back, I was curious because in my mind it's really, this is like e commerce shopping to me.

Like, how do we start to see E commerce develop e commerce shopping?

That was all that they saw.

And I think that we still can't even check out in these platforms yet.

So I would say, like, what we really should be looking at is the difference from this year to next year.

I, I think what we should be looking at is what we see in next year's growth.

Once you can start transacting.

Once ads are starting to be placed in here, special offers are starting to be placed in here.

Because the number one thing that this services and why I think so even 25% of people were using this is that it gives you price transparency.

You can very quickly look at, I want, I know I want to buy this toy for my kid or this gaming system.

Here's all the places that it is here.

Like we've never been able to do that independently outside of a retailer's website before as a consumer.

And so I think that to me is where the real growth opportunity is going to be.

So I'll hold my judgment on that.

But that was the stat that really stood out to me was that the agents were already involved in 25% and where is that going to go next year?

Yeah, and I, I question how they're using agents in the definition of that too.

But you know, without knowing for sure, it's always tricky but, but you know, at the end of the day too, like I'd say like most, most e commerce happens via search platform anyway.

So is that why we're seeing that is the question I would ask.