Black Friday saw a drop in online sales for the first time in years. And, e-commerce stocks may struggle next year as analysts are more pessimistic about the consumer spending outlook. Therefore, we think investors are better off avoiding e-commerce stocks Amazon (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY).According to Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) Analytics' Digital Economy Index, Black Friday online sales dipped to $8.9 billion for the first time ever. The reason is that the retailers had started offering deals earlier in October, and strategic shoppers grabbed those opportunities for the best deals. Furthermore, the threat of supply chain disruptions and delivery delays made shopaholics take advantage of the early discounts.
Although retailers had a rough phase last year due to the pandemic, decrease in consumer spending, and supply chain bottlenecks, they rebuilt themselves and generated better revenues this year due to increased in-store traffic and online sales. However, since the early attractive deals offered by retailers changed the shopping patterns and led to a decline in Black Friday's online sales, it would be wise to avoid fundamentally weak retail stocks.
We believe e-commerce stocks Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) are best avoided now.