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

Shoppers carry bags at an outlet mall in Sunrise, Florida, on Friday. Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg/Getty Images

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. T