Americans Will Spend $10,390 on Amazon Black Friday Deals in Their Lifetime

Brace yourself for Black Friday! In every city and every town across the States, people will be waking up early after their Thanksgiving feasts to hit the stores. While we’re used to seeing images of crowded malls on our TV screens, online shopping has become increasingly popular in recent years. In 2022, 87.2 million Americans chose to take to their screens to shop and when it comes to online shopping, it is Amazon that very much leads the charge, accounting for 41% of all Black Friday spending in the States. At Moneyzine we have looked into how much money the average US citizen spends on their lifetime on the retail holiday and how much of that spend can be directly attributed to the retail giant:

Next Friday, the average US citizen will spend $397.64 on deals. With a typical American spending $708 on their Christmas shopping, Black Friday alone accounts for 56% of all festive spending. Given that Black Friday has been widely regarded as the start of the Christmas shopping season since 1952 and serves as a follow-on from the Thanksgiving festivities it is no surprise that Black Friday is considered to be the leading sales holiday of the year. Of those set to shop, Generation Z is by far the savviest, with 68% intending to pick up a great deal on the day.

It’s not for everyone though and there are certain stores, such as Apple, that famously refuse to get involved. For many others, it is the biggest day in the shopping calendar – with Barclaycard reporting a 3.2% rise in transactions during 2022’s event. While it's common for Americans to set their alarms early and hit the malls, online retail still prospers, with Amazon claiming 41% of all Black Friday spending in the United States, or $163 per person. This year, Amazon’s deals will stretch all the way from 17th November through to Cyber Monday on the 27th. The biggest bargains will of course appear on the day itself. Second only to Amazon is Walmart, which accounts for 25% of all Black Friday spending, or $99.41 in the US.

Americans Spend on Average $25,345 in Their Lifetime on Black Friday

The US life expectancy is currently 79.74 years. Assuming that the average person will begin their own shopping at 16 years of age, we have 63.74 shopping years in a lifetime, with the opportunity to rack up $25,345 on Black Friday deals and discounts. Of that spend; an average of $10,390 will end up with Amazon, and $6,336 with Walmart.

It may come as a surprise to know that for slightly less than the average lifetime Black Friday spend you could pick up a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home in Cleveland, Ohio, and through that lens the cost of the annual splurge might seem rather alarming.

When looked at from this perspective, these apparent bargains may start to feel a little less special. However, personal finance expert Jonathan Merry believes that brands like Amazon are able to cash in by bringing the public what they require:

Regardless of what deals are available, the average American will spend $708.00 during this festive season. While Black Friday has been considered the start of the Christmas shopping season for almost 60 years, the way in which the public shops has changed immeasurably since the holiday began. In 2021, the majority of Black Friday shopping was carried out on mobile devices, and rather than searching the stores for the best deals, a savvy American public expects brands like Amazon to bring deals directly to them.

Jonathan Merry, personal finance expert

Gift-giving is a rightly treasured custom, and one which is all the more important at Christmas time. Most of us find that there is more pleasure to be had in bringing joy to family and friends than having some extra numbers on the bank balance, and it is perhaps for this reason that the average American will lavish a phenomenal $45,127 on loved ones over the course of a lifetime. Black Friday is often maligned as a sign of rampant consumerism, but in truth it is sustained by generosity over self-indulgence, and is the marker of a healthy and competitive marketplace.

Methodology

To determine how much the average adult spends on Amazon Black Friday deals in their lifetime we first looked at the Wunderman Thompson Black Friday Insight Report which determined the average expected spend for the United States on Black Friday will be $397.64.

The data mentioned that 41% of all Black Friday spending in the United States was carried out on Amazon. Our Amazon Black Friday spend was determined as 41% of $397.64 or $163.

We used World Population Review to find the average life expectancy for the United States, which is currently 79.74 years. We deducted 16 from this number as we postulated this to be the age at which a typical citizen would start shopping for their own friends and family. This gave us an average number of shopping years.

We multiplied the average spend of $397.64 by the average number of shopping years, which gave us a lifetime Black Friday spend of $25,345.

We multiplied the average Amazon spend of $163 by the average number of shopping years, to give us a lifetime Amazon Black Friday spend of $10,390.

The $45,127 spend devoted to loved ones over the course of a lifetime was taken by multiplying the average Christmas spend of $708 by the average number of shopping years for a US citizen (63.74).