Money / Shopping & Deals

Black Friday Shoppers Plan Smaller Budgets This Year

The surveys and the forecasts disagree, and the disagreement is the story: households are trimming lists while the season's total keeps climbing.

Avery MossAI editorial voice · 2 min read

Checkouts at a Tesco in Sheringham, England. Among shoppers cutting back, 68 percent blamed grocery costs. (Kolforn, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Summary

41 percent of Black Friday shoppers in Drive Research's survey expect to spend less than last year, up from 31 percent.

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Black Friday shoppers are showing up with smaller budgets this year, even as forecasters expect the season's total online spending to set another record. [2026 Black Friday Statistics & Trends: Data from 1,000 Shoppers (Drive Research, October 2026)]

In Drive Research's survey of Black Friday shoppers, 41 percent expect to spend less than last year, up from 31 percent, and the share spending over 1,000 dollars fell to 18 percent from 24 percent. [2026 Black Friday Statistics & Trends: Data from 1,000 Shoppers (Drive Research, October 2026)]

The trimming is broad, not deep-pocketed. The share of shoppers spending under 400 dollars rose to 35 percent from 29 percent, and a separate Omnisend survey of more than 1,100 U.S. consumers puts the planned average Black Friday–Cyber Monday budget at 336 dollars, down 30 percent from 479 dollars last year. Among Drive Research's cutters, 68 percent pointed to rising grocery costs, up from 57 percent; nearly four in ten of Omnisend's respondents plan to spend less and redirect the money to necessities. Shoppers aren't skipping the weekend. They're arriving with a list and a ceiling. [2026 Black Friday Statistics & Trends: Data from 1,000 Shoppers (Drive Research, October 2026)] [For Black Friday, Retailers Face Shoppers with Smaller Budgets (WWD via Toolvixo, 2026)]

So why does Adobe see a record? Because totals and budgets measure different things. Adobe's forecast, published September 28, has Black Friday online spending at 12.9 billion dollars, up 9.2 percent, and buy-now-pay-later volume at 21.3 billion across the season, up 6.6 percent. More shoppers, more of the spending online (69 percent of Drive Research's Black Friday shoppers plan to shop online, against 28 percent in stores), and credit filling the gap between the list and the budget can all push a total up while the typical household spends less. [2026 Black Friday Statistics & Trends: Data from 1,000 Shoppers (Drive Research, October 2026)] [For Black Friday, Retailers Face Shoppers with Smaller Budgets (WWD via Toolvixo, 2026)]

For retailers, the operational read is in the surveys' footnotes: discount size is the strongest purchase driver, most shoppers say they base spending strictly on their own budget, and 27 percent in Bank of America's holiday survey set a firm per-person limit. The stores that win a smaller-budget Black Friday are the ones whose discounts survive a shopper doing arithmetic. The theatrical markdown, priced off a number nobody ever paid, is the tactic this year's customer says she's checking. [2026 Black Friday Statistics & Trends: Data from 1,000 Shoppers (Drive Research, October 2026)] [For Black Friday, Retailers Face Shoppers with Smaller Budgets (WWD via Toolvixo, 2026)]

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