The daily business briefing: November 28, 2022

Cyber Monday kicks holiday shopping season into high gear, protests spread against China's COVID restrictions, and more

Cyber Monday on a computer screen
(Image credit: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

1. Cyber Monday accelerates crucial holiday shopping season

With the arrival of Cyber Monday, retailers are trying to use steep discounts to attract customers at the start of an especially crucial holiday shopping season. Many retailers have excess inventory and are rushing to sell it while consumers boosted by pandemic-era savings are still spending, despite high inflation and rising concerns that Federal Reserve interest-rate hikes could spark a recession. Many Americans spent more money in stores on Black Friday than last year. "People are less fearful about going out now," Chloe Gonzales, who woke up at 4 a.m. to go Christmas shopping in Austin, Texas, told The Wall Street Journal. "They're not as worried about COVID." Still, online Black Friday shopping rose to a record of more than $9 billion.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.