Amazon.com Inc. had the highest market share of total consumer spending over the Black Friday weekend, which included the four days of Nov. 26-29, according to Numerator, a market research firm.

This was the online giant’s first time reaching that milestone. Amazon’s archrival Walmart Inc. had the top market share for the comparable period in 2019.

Amazon.com Inc. (No. 1 in the 2020 Digital Commerce 360 Next 1000) had a 19.1% market share for total spending the four days, up 7.4 percentage points from its 11.7% share over Black Friday weekend in 2019. Market share for Walmart (No. 3) fell to 13.6%, including online and in-store sales. In 2019, Walmart had an 18.6% share, making it the market-share leader for the four-day period, while Amazon was in second place, with an 11.7% share, Numerator says.

“For the first time—and just six weeks post-Prime Day—Amazon surpassed Walmart by capturing the largest share of spending over Black Friday weekend,” says Shalin Shah, vice president of growth at Numerator. “And given that the pandemic has pushed many new shoppers and categories online, we can expect Amazon’s reign over retail holidays to continue.”

During the four days, the online share of all sales grew to 38.4% of the total, up from about 24% in 2019. Brick-and-mortar sales dropped to a 61.6% share of overall retail spending, down from roughly 75% in 2019, Numerator says.

Numerator collects data on consumer spending, as reported in its million-person share measurement tracking system.

In-store sales at Walmart (No.3) took the largest hit in terms of market share, decreasing six percentage points to 9.5% of total spending over the period—down from a 15.5% share in 2019. Market share for brick-and-mortar sales at Target Corp. (No. 12) dropped 1.5 percentage points to 3.0%. In-store sales at Home Depot Inc. dropped 0.6 points to 2.4% and those at Costco Wholesale Corp. (No. 16) remained steady at 2.6%, Numerator says.

Market share for BestBuy.com, the ecommerce site for Best Buy Inc. (No. 10), grew 1.9 percentage compared with 2019, to 3.0%. Other online sites such as Walmart.com, Target.com and Costco.com had modest increases versus a year ago (up 0.7, 0.3 and 0.2 percentage points respectively), but not enough to offset market-share losses suffered by the retailers’ stores, Numerator says.

Consumer income and age-group trends

At 42%, higher-income consumers (those with annual incomes above $80,000) spent the most significant percentage of their Black Friday weekend budgets online. Middle-income shoppers (yearly incomes of $40,000 to $80,000) devoted 37% of their spending to online purchases. Lower-income shoppers (incomes below $40,000) spent 30% of their Black Friday weekend budgets online. Walmart secured the largest share of spending with lower-income shoppers at 18.8% compared with 13.6% across all income levels. Amazon did best with high-income shoppers at 21.9% of those consumers’ Black Friday weekend spending.

By age group, Amazon had the highest share of spending for every generation except the “greatest generation”—those born before 1945. Walmart (brick-and-mortar and online sales combined) was most popular among that group, with a 17.5% market share, followed by Amazon’s 16.0%.

Millennials topped online buying at 46.4% of their spending over the four days. However, Gen X made the most significant shift to online. Its online share of spending increased by 15.7 points year over year to 41% of spending—followed by millennials with an increase of 14.8 points and baby boomers, with 12.6 points to 33% of spending for the period.

The largest generational increases at Amazon were with Gen X (up 8.1 points), boomers (8.4 points) and the greatest generation (8.3 points).

By ethnicity, Hispanics and Black consumers made the most significant shifts to online spending. The percentages they spent online grew 17.8 and 16.5 percentage points, respectively, versus the prior year, compared with the overall increase in online shopping of 13.9 points. Online/offline spending shows little variance by ethnicity. But consumers identifying as Asian lead with a 39.7% online share online, followed by those identifying as Hispanic (39%), Black (38.7%) and white (38.4%).

Amazon attracted the highest share of spending among white, Black and Asian consumers at 19.9%, 18.5% and 18.4%, respectively. Walmart did best among white, Black and Hispanic consumers at 14.3%, 13.5% and 13.3%, respectively. Costco significantly outperforms among Asian consumers, securing 12.6% of spending.

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