Neil Freiman

It's also a sign that Black Friday still remains a tentpole shopping holiday, even as retailers spread their deals out over many days, even weeks.

Toby, did you do your patriotic duty and support the economy by buying stuff you didn't need?

Well, it looks like retailers are trying to court Gen Z shoppers.

They don't make a huge amount of they don't account for a ton of retail spending today, just eight percent.

But that is expected to grow to about 20 percent within five years.

That's about two trillion dollars annually.

So they're doing a lot of marketing to Gen Z. Maybe they're not going to be spending this Black Friday, but they are going to be growing into a core with a lot more disposable income.

And they want to hook them now and get that brand online.

loyalty.

One generation that's feeling left out in the cold with all of this Black Friday hoopla is Gen X. So Gen X is the only generation that said they would spend more this Black Friday than last year.

But when you look at the stats, Gen X is not being targeted at all by retailers.

Only 5% of brand influencers spending is targeted to Gen X, even though 92% of Gen Xers use social media daily.

28% of TikTok's user base is Gen X. And by Gen X, I should say these are people from 45 to 60.

They are willing to spend.

They have a lot of people to spend it on, too, because they sit in the middle.

They have maybe aging parents that they need to take care of and buy stuff for.

At the same time, they might also have kids that they also need to buy gifts for.

So they're a very lucrative cohort.

And it seems like retailers, for whatever reason, are deciding not to court them and skip the line and go ahead to Gen Z for their look to the future.

I think that hits harder on December 20th than December 1st when you're cramming for all these gift ideas.