Black Friday online sales dip for 1st time, to $8.9 billion, Adobe finds

With more Americans taking advantage of deals offered earlier, online spending on Black Friday declined for the first time, to $8.9 billion, according to Adobe Analytics data.

Last year's Black Friday record of $9 billion was an increase of 21.6% year over year, the company found.

"For the first time ever, Black Friday saw a reversal of the growth trend of past years," Vivek Pandya, lead analyst for Adobe Digital Insights, said in a statement. "Shoppers are being strategic in their gift shopping, buying much earlier in the season and being flexible about when they shop to make sure they get the best deals."

Online spending on Thanksgiving was $5.1 billion, the same as last year, which also marked the first time both Thanksgiving and Black Friday online spending didn't see year-over-year increases, the company found.

That could be a further sign that "consumers started to shift their spending to earlier in the season, responding to promotions and deals from retailers that started in October," the company said.

Despite concerns around supply chain issues, Cyber Monday is expected to be the biggest online shopping day of the year, with $10.2 billion to $11.3 billion estimated in online spending. Last year saw a Cyber Monday record of $10.8 billion in online purchases, according to Adobe.

So far this holiday season, consumers have spent $89.9 billion online since Nov. 1 and are on track to hit $207 billion by Dec. 26, according to Adobe.

Adobe Analytics data covers over 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites and 100 million stock-keeping units, which are used to track inventory.