SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Despite rising prices and supply chain issues, Americans have already done a whopping amount of holiday shopping ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Data from online analytics company Adobe shows Americans spent $72.2 billion online from Nov. 1 to Nov. 23 — representing nearly 20% growth in sales over last year.
"The concern that consumers have around shortages and not being able to get their products in time for the season, that's really driving a lot of the early spending," said Adobe lead insights analyst Vivek Pandya.
At Citrus Town Shopping Center in Citrus Heights, more than one dozen shoppers could be seen lining up in front of the GameStop on Thanksgiving Day. The PS5 and other game consoles are a hot commodity this Christmas.
"It was never even this bad when the ports were open only in the daytime, and now they’re open 24 hours a day, five days a week and it’s horrible," said CJ Dao, who managed to get one of the last PS5 consoles in stock.
Dao, who lives in Sacramento, has seen the supply chain issues first hand in his job at the Port of Oakland.
And while Adobe also reports that out-of-stock messages have risen 261% compared with the pre-pandemic holiday period in 2019, they point out we have yet to see the biggest online shopping day of the year, Cyber Monday, which is expected to hit a new record at $11.3 billion in online sales.
Dao says he has a backup plan if he can't get everything on his list in time for the holidays.
"If it doesn't get here, it doesn't get here. I mean, gift cards always work," Dao said.
ABC10: Watch, Download, Read
WATCH MORE: