01/12/2025

BIZ & FINANCE MONDAY | DEC 1, 2025

17 Black Friday online spending hits record US$11.8 billion

NEW YORK: AI-powered shopping tools helped drive a surge in US online spending on Black Friday, as shoppers bypassed crowded stores and turned to chatbots to compare prices and secure discounts amid concerns about tariff-driven price hikes. US shoppers spent a record US$11.8 billion (RM48.8 billion) online, up 9.1% from 2024 on the year’s biggest shopping day, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks one trillion visits that shoppers make to online retail websites. The holiday shopping season arrives amid tighter budgets, unemployment nearing a four-year high, US consumer confidence sagging to a seven-month low and price tags that have shoppers watching every dollar. Online shopping demand increased as consumers showed savviness in the holiday season, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which noted a 10.4% growth in e-commerce sales on Black Friday, compared to an in-store sales growth of 1.7% in 2024. The AI-driven traffic to US retail sites soared 805% compared to last year, Adobe said, when artificial intelligence tools such as Walmart’s Sparky or Amazon’s Rufus had not yet been launched. “Consumers are using new tools to “It’s a bit of doing technology for technology’s sake,”Tye Brady said in a recent interview. “Whenever we think about robotics, we think about, A, what’s the problem we’re trying to solve? And, B, then function. From function, we derive form. And it kind of gets it backwards if you start with form.” Breakdancing androids from Chinese manufacturer Unitree were cited by Web Summit organiser Paddy Cosgrave as he declared that “the era of Western tech dominance is fading” last week. Brady, by contrast, pointed to the more than one million robots already deployed by Amazon in its e-commerce operations. These range from arms for picking and sorting items to wheeled haulers that carry heavy loads around warehouse spaces – sensing and avoiding human workers as they go. Amazon’s fleet compares with around two million industrial robots in service across the whole Chinese economy in 2024 and more than 4.5 million worldwide, according to a September report from the International Federation of Robotics. The company also boasts of the ecosystem and supply chain it has built up in Massachusetts for developing and building its robots within US borders. Brady said that the world is still “in the early stages of robotics, of physical AI”. But “there is no such thing as 100% automation”, he added, saying that Amazon’s machines are designed “to provide utility and augmentation to people” and “eliminate the menial, the mundane, and the repetitive” from human work. Brady acknowledged that elements of the humanoid form

tags made deeper discounts difficult for retailers. Promotions and discounts may not feel as sharp as last year due to higher product costs driven by inflation and tariffs, according to Davidkhanian, and the final price does not feel as compelling to shoppers. The combination of higher prices and flat discounts means the real value of Black Friday bargains has slipped for consumers, according to Michael Ashley Schulman, chief investment officer at Running Point. Order volumes fell 1% as average selling prices rose 7%. Consumers also purchased fewer items at checkout, with units per transaction falling 2% on a year-over-year basis, Salesforce said. “There are two things driving up the average selling price in the United States,” said Caila Schwartz, director of consumer insights at Salesforce. “The first is absolutely the impact of

tariffs, especially on those discretionary categories where we’ve seen a lot of growth in selling price. The other is the fact that we’re seeing a much stronger higher income earner than average income earner, evidenced by the strength in the luxury category.” The spending surge sets the stage for an even bigger Cyber Monday, projected to drive US$14.2 billion in sales, up 6.3% on a year-over-year basis and the largest online shopping day of the year, Adobe said. Electronics are expected to see the deepest discounts on Cyber Monday, reaching 30% off list prices, along with strong deals on apparel and computers, Adobe said. At physical stores, however, the bargain-chasing was relatively subdued on Black Friday, with some shoppers saying they feared overspending amid persistent inflation, trade-driven uncertainty, and a soft labour market. – Reuters

o AI tools help American consumers find deals, physical store traffic subdued

get to what they need faster,” said Suzy Davidkhanian, an analyst at eMarketer. “Gift giving can be stressful, and LLMs (large language models) make the discovery process feel quicker and more guided.” Hot sellers on Black Friday included LEGO sets, Pokemon cards, gaming consoles like the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5, and products ranging from Apple AirPods to KitchenAid mixers. Globally, AI and agents influenced US$14.2 billion in online sales on Black Friday, of which US$3 billion came from the US alone, according to software firm Salesforce.

Salesforce, whose data includes non-discretionary items like groceries, reported that US consumers had spent US$18 billion online on Black Friday purchases, up 3% from a year ago, with luxury apparel and accessories among the most popular categories. Although US consumers spent more this Black Friday compared to last year, price increases hampered online demand, according to Salesforce, with shoppers purchasing fewer items at checkout compared to last year. Discount rates also remained flat when compared to 2024, with AI helping shoppers discover the best deals, and an increase in the price

Amazon robotics chief casts doubt on eye-catching humanoids PARIS: Flashy humanoid robots that have awed attendees at Web Summit in Lisbon last week are still far from revolutionising physical labour in factories and warehouses, Amazon’s chief roboticist told AFP.

A Unitree Robotics humanoid robot takes part in a 400m race at the inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing. – REUTERSPIC

by a human for complex tasks. Brady said that work is still needed before robots are able to interact with the whole range of objects they might encounter in the environment. Announced earlier this year, Amazon’s Vulcan robot – which sports sensing technology allowing it to avoid damaging items it is gripping or nudging aside – is able to

pick and stow around 75% of items the giant web store offers. But the system is for now a large floor-mounted assembly, rather than a lithe humanoid. Looking to the future, “if you start to combine ... aptitude in mobility and manipulation, and free yourself from form and focus more on the function, that’s actually going to be really great”, Brady said. – AFP

might prove useful – such as bipedal locomotion for “uneven terrain or the ability to go up and down stairs”. But as exciting as robots getting around on two legs may be, their value is determined by the tasks they are able to perform when they reach their destination. “I can move to wherever ... but once you get there, there’s probably a task that you need to do. And that

task is going to now involve some sort of sense of touch, some sort of manipulation,” Brady said. The rush to bring humanoid robots to market has led some firms to race ahead of the technology. California startup 1X last month drew both excitement and derision by offering a home help android for pre-order at US$20,000 – including an “expert mode” operated remotely