Retailers of all stripes have likely been anxiously anticipating the coming of the Black Friday-Cyber Monday holiday shopping weekend in 2023. Consumers in the United States have been squeezed hard by the impacts of soaring inflation in 2022 and the response by the U.S. Federal Reserve to pursue the most aggressive interest rate tightening policy since the beginning of the new Millennium.
Top clothing and other consumer discretionary retailers faced major challenges after the 2007-2009 Great Recession and suffered another existential crisis in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic. Traditional brick-and-mortar retail locations were forced to shutter their doors if they were non-essential during this period. That mean that retailers had to have a digital channel to succeed.
Fortunately, this past Black Friday was a very good one for online retailers. Adobe Analytics reported that Black Friday generated $9.8 billion in U.S. online sales. That is up 7.5% compared to the previous year. Despite the strong sales, retailers do expect revenues to taper off in the weeks following the holiday shopping weekend. That is a trend that investors should monitor going forward.
Shopify (NYSE:SHOP) is a stock to watch after the Black Friday-Cyber Monday holiday shopping weekend. This company provides an e-commerce platform for its broad stable of merchants. In 2022, Shopify merchants reportedly set a new Black Friday-Cyber Monday sales record of $7.5 billion. Shares of Shopify have soared 97% in 2023 as of close on Friday, November 24.
