Early insights into holiday shopping trends show a growing movement toward emerging and alternative payment methods. As consumer spending data for Black Friday and Cyber Monday trickle in, buy now, pay later (BNPL) plans, in particular, continue to ascend in popularity.
According to Adobe Research, BNPL companies have processed over $9 billion in purchases since November 1. Block, the parent company of Afterpay, reported a 10% increase in BNPL transactions from the previous year.
Younger consumers have been driving the surge in BNPL usage, suggesting that this trend will likely endure. Across all of Block’s platforms—which include Cash App and Square, and Afterpay—millennials accounted for 44% of BNPL transactions.
Similarly, PayPal reported double-digit growth in BNPL sales through its Pay in 4 platform compared to the previous year. Overall, PayPal noted itprocessed $70 billion in payments on Cyber Monday alone.
The BNPL figures show an increase over last year’s record=breaking numbers. So far during the holiday season, BNPL spending has reached $18.6 billion, up from $16.6 billion in 2023 and $14.5 billion in 2022.
Alternative Methods
BNPL isn’t the only winner this holiday season—online shopping continues to soar. Unsurprisingly, more shoppers are moving online. From November 1 through December 2, holiday shoppers spent $131.5 billion online, up 9% from the same period last year. Online cart sizes were double the size of in-person shopping carts, according to Adobe.
Mobile devices also played a significant role in online sales, with shoppers completing $7.6 billion in purchases on Cyber Monday alone—a 13% increase compared to the prior year. Notably, more than half of all online sales on Cyber Monday came from mobile devices. By contrast, as recently as 2019, just 33% holiday purchases on Cyber Monday came from mobile.
What’s more, Adobe reported strong demand for gift cards, with holiday shoppers purchasing 450,000 gift cards this year on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, a 29% increase over last year. The most popular gift card categories included food and beverage, retail, leisure and entertainment, and beauty and wellness.
Meanwhile, separate data from Mastercard reported that U.S. retail sales rose by 3.4% on Black Friday over the same pace a year ago. Nearly all of the growth was drive by online sales. Digital purchases using Mastercard grew by 14.6% year-over-year, while in-store sales saw a modest 0.7% increase.
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