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Watch Black Friday Deal Hunters Rack Up Christmas Debt in Real Time

Last Updated September 23, 2020 1:18 PM
Josiah Wilmoth
Last Updated September 23, 2020 1:18 PM
  • Black Friday deal hunters are on pace to smash online shopping records.
  • Many Americans finance their Christmas spending with debt.
  • A neat graphic from Shopify lets you watch those purchases – and those debts – pile up in real-time.

Black Friday spending is off to a record start this year, and analysts predict online sales alone could clear $7.4 billion  today. Unfortunately, that means that Americans are likely on track to rack up a record amount of Christmas debt.

Shopify Graphic Lets You Track Black Friday Spending Live

Thanks to Shopify, smug personal finance junkies can now gawk at their budget-challenged peers in real-time.

The e-commerce platform unveiled a neat graphic that lets you track Black Friday and Cyber Monday spending  at Shopify stores across the world.

black friday spending real-time graphic
Black Friday shoppers are breaking the bank this Christmas season. | Source: Shopify 

As of the time of writing, Shopify stores were raking $1 million in sales per minute while processing roughly 10,000 orders.

Record Holiday Spending Likely Means Record Christmas Debt

If past years are any guide, many of those purchases will be funded with debt.

According to MagnifyMoney’s most recent annual holiday debt survey , US consumers who financed their Christmas spending accumulated an average of $1,230 in debt last year, which was a 17% increase from 2017.

Even worse, more than one-fifth of respondents said they planned to pay off their Christmas debt using minimum payments, which means they’re likely still carrying most of last year’s debt  into this year’s holiday shopping season.