K-shaped economy and inflation boost Black Friday sales by 4.1% from last year, online spending jumps 9.1%

Source: CNN Business

PUBLISHED Nov 29, 2025, 4:32 PM ET


US retail sales on Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, climbed 4.1% compared with last year, according to data released Saturday by Mastercard SpendingPulse. Online shoppers alone spent $11.8 billion, up 9.1% from 2024, according to data collection platform Adobe Analytics.

But those gains don’t account for higher prices due to inflation, so actual spending could be flat. “We have 3% inflation, so maybe (the 4.1% increase in spending) is a real increase of just 1% or so, which is not that much of an increase,” Rick Newman, who writes The Pinpoint Press, a newsletter on the US economy, told CNN on Friday.

There’s also a bifurcation in who’s spending. The Federal Reserve’s most recent Beige Book, a collection of anecdotes about the economy, showed consumer spending among low- and middle-income consumers is on the decline. Meanwhile, the Fed found high-end consumers are continuing to spend — including on luxury items and travel.

Consumers have bought fewer items this holiday season, but the average selling prices are higher, according to Claudia Lombana, a national consumer expert. “The ones that have higher income are spending at will, but those who are less affluent are budgeting,” Lombana told CNN’s Omar Jimenez on Saturday.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/29/business/black-friday-us-econony-spending