There’s one record that this year’s Cyber 5 didn’t break: how many U.S. consumers shopped over the holiday weekend.

The Cyber 5 — the period from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday — brought in more than $41 billion in online sales in 2024. That’s up from $38 billion in 2023, according to data from Adobe Analytics.

But despite record-setting ecommerce sales, fewer U.S. consumers went shopping during the 2024 Cyber 5 — in person and online — according to data from the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics.

Adobe Analytics says it bases its data on more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories. 200 online retailers in the Top 1000 use Adobe Analytics for their web analytics. 97 use it for site design and development. Top 1000 online retailers also use it for content delivery and management, as an ecommerce platform, a marketing platform, for personalization and more.

The Top 1000 is Digital Commerce 360’s database of North America’s largest online retailers based on their annual ecommerce sales.

Some consumers opt out of Cyber 5 shopping

2023 set a record for the number of consumers shopping during the Cyber 5, according to NRF data, with 200.4 million shoppers out searching for promotions.

This year, NRF estimates, 197 million U.S. consumers went shopping during the Cyber 5. Although that’s second to last year, it exceeded NRF’s initial expectations for the five-day period.

“Thanksgiving weekend retains its prominence among holiday spending events and continues to play a significant role in the holiday season for both consumers and retailers,” said NRF president and CEO Matthew Shay, in a statement. “Even with this year’s shortened shopping period and the multitude of early sales promotions from retailers, this past weekend exceeded expectations in terms of the sheer volume of shoppers.”

How many consumers shopping online during the 2024 Cyber 5?

The number of consumers who shopped in physical stores during this year’s Cyber 5 outnumbered last year, 126 million to 121.4 million. However, about 10 million fewer U.S. consumers shopped online during the sales period in 2024 than in 2023, NRF data shows.

In 2024, 124.3 million U.S. consumers shopped online during the Cyber 5. That compares to 134.2 million in 2023, according to the NRF.

And based on both NRF’s number of consumers and Adobe’s sales totals, that means U.S. consumers spent more online per person, on average, during the 2024 Cyber 5 than in 2023.

And in that five-day span, Black Friday lived up to its reputation as the busiest shopping day of the year. NRF data shows that 81.7 million consumers shopped in stores on Black Friday 2024. That’s an increase from 76.2 million that day last year. It’s also the largest number of Black Friday in-person shoppers since the pandemic began, NRF said.

On the other hand, fewer consumers shopped online during Black Friday in 2024 than in 2023. 87.3 million shopped online this year compared to 90.6 million last year.

Saturday had the next-highest total of in-store shoppers during the Cyber 5, at 61.1 million, according to the NRF.

Meanwhile, Cyber Monday had the second-highest total of online shoppers, at 64.4 million. That’s nearly 9 million less than the 73.1 million in 2023.

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