Black Friday with Shopify & Amazon 11/28/25

0:00Bring in show music please. This is Squawk Pod and I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. On today's episode, it's Black Friday. The holiday shopping season is officially upon us, so we're going to the mall with CNBC's Courtney Regan. The cadence has changed for the day as far as wind traffic peaks, but it is still a very, very important day for retail. We're checking in on Shopify with President Harley Finkelstein's minute-to-minute sales numbers. Skin care, vitamins, supplements, activewear. So people are shopping for themselves right now. Right. And on Amazon with head of U.S. Prime Video, Jay Marine.

0:42The platform is touting Black Friday football and Black Friday shopping. And we're going to have Black Friday deals happening all throughout the day that you can shop throughout the game and really take action right from your couch. Plus, the rest of today's news that got us squawking, like Russian President Putin ready for serious peace talks with Ukraine. And a cooling issue at a data center caused a major outage at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Thanks for having me on a day when nothing's working. It's Friday, November 28th, and Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in three, two, one.

1:23Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We are live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Steve Leesman and Robert Frank. Joe and Andrew are off today. But hello and wake up. If you are just getting up this morning, you better check things out. Early this morning, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange saying that its markets were halted because of a cooling issue at a data center. Among the markets that are impacted by this outage, stock index futures, crude oil prices, treasuries and foreign exchange. The CME says that after the outage is resolved, it may take some time for moves in the impacted contracts to be seen.

2:03The data center operator, Cyrus One, just saying that it has restarted several chillers at limited capacity and engineers are working to restore that capacity. We are going to show you some of the moves in the large ETFs that track the indices. based on those proxies for the markets, we could see fractional gains for stocks at the open. And we probably should point out for you, too, that just before futures went down, it was looking like things were positive and pointing to positive futures moves. I think the S &P futures were up by about one tenth of a percent before that went down. And here's what you see right now in those major ETFs that tracks things.

2:38Invesco's triple Qs, that's up by about four tenths of a percent. The spider for the S &P 500 up by about a quarter percent. And the spider Dow up by just fractionally, just by less than one tenth of a percent. We will continue to follow all of this. But guys, if you were looking at what happened last week, things were looking pretty good for what had been a relatively weak market or weak month for the markets. Last week, you saw the Dow, the S &P 500, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ 100, the Russell 2000 and the Dow Transports all posting their fourth straight session in a row. And it really turned around the markets that had seen so much weakness for the month.

3:17You're looking at a pretty down month for November. It's the first time we've had a down month in November in a long time. It looks like it'll still be down depending what happens today. Now, today is already a low volume day. So this could be a little bit choppy if these futures issues don't get fixed right away, particularly in the Treasury market. As Steve knows, we're still riding the Williams rally, which was based on, you know, John Williams saying that, look, we probably likely should have a cut. And that's what really sparked that four-day rally after questions about the AI trade. So if the futures are unsteady today or there's there's wide spreads between bids and ass, it could be an interesting.

3:58I just want to say thanks for having me on a day when nothing's working. I mean, I haven't done this in like a year and you have me in and nothing's working. I mean, it's all right. I mean, there's no correlation. We're going to throw you right into the heat and the fire. Most things that people care about are not going to be. And you feel good about these ETFs as proxies? They're OK. Perhaps. I mean, I won't say I follow. Why don't we just show the MAG-7? I mean, the individual stock futures are trading. We should point that out. Right. And since the MAG-7 have been driving the market, there has been a bit of broadening.

4:29But I think it would be useful if we start showing those tech stocks, because those are the ones that have really driven the markets. I know this is pathetic to ask on national television, but when I'm looking at this 10-year at$399, is that a real quote? I don't believe so. You don't think so? I don't think so. And my Fed probabilities aren't working? No. I don't know. Fed futures are not trading.

4:52Developing story. One of two Guard members shot in a targeted ambush shooting in Washington on Wednesday has died. Sarah Beckstrom was 20 years old. She began serving in the West Virginia National Guard in June of 2023. President Trump said she died of her wounds last night. The other Guardsman was identified as a 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe. The president said he was in very bad shape and fighting for his life. The suspected government, Ramanullah Lakanwal, was also shot and taken to a hospital. The CIA said he's an Afghan national who worked with U.S. forces during the war in Afghanistan. Late last night, President Trump posting on Truth Social that he is, quote, permanently pausing migration from all third world countries.

5:35He also said he would end all federal benefits and subsidies to non-citizens. Yeah, we don't know what that means, right? What does the freeze mean? which countries are the Washington already editorializing against this move by the president. I mean, this gentleman is, you know, terrible person who committed this was working for the CIA in Afghanistan. And The Wall Street Journal pointing out this morning that is not helpful for U.S. forces that will eventually go in there. Many Afghans who have come back because they were in danger for staying in Afghanistan. Yeah, of course, by the imbroglio, perhaps we shall say for how Biden exited there.

6:12but you still had to bring back these people.

6:19Russian President Vladimir Putin's breaking his silence on the peace plan that was proposed by the U.S. saying Moscow is ready for, quote, serious discussions. He said that the plan could be the basis for future agreements, but no final version exists yet. And he confirmed that U.S. envoy Steve Whitcoff is expected to visit Moscow next week and meet with Putin. a lot of intrigue over the past week about who leaked it and whose motives and whether this will really throw a wrench into the process. But yeah, this could be interesting. Yeah. And to see if they are serious about it, because to this point, it has been Russia that has been the bulwark that has kind of thwarted anything you could have going on in terms of peace talks to.

7:06Apparently, Ukraine also said that they would that anything that forced them to give up sovereign territory was a nonstarter for them. So it doesn't seem like the parameters of this are being embraced by either side. We can tell.

7:22Dutch chipmaker Nick Spiria has published an open letter calling on its China unit to restore supply chain operations. The company said it published the letter after repeated attempts to establish direct communications through conventional channels, but did not get any, quote, meaningful response. Now, in the last few minutes, this is important. Xperia China did respond with a statement saying there's no situation where, quote, it cannot be contacted. So that's kind of strange. It said the Dutch company has implemented destructive measures against its employees, including deleting email accounts and terminating IT access, and that it demands the company, quote, abandoned improper intentions to replace Chinese capacity.

8:04Now, why this matters? Well, it's a big problem for automakers because Nexperia makes billions of low-tech chips that are used in cars, connect the battery to the motors, for instance, lights to the sensors, braking systems to the airbag controllers, entertainment systems, all that stuff. Automakers have repeatedly warned of a looming shortage of these chips, given that that could halt production. So this appears to be an intra-company battle between Nexperia and its China unit, which maybe was worried about some treatment of workers, but they have phoned home, it appears, or at least issued a statement.

8:41So we'll see whether that actually affects the production of these chips or not. Kind of a strange situation where they both went public, Nexperia saying, please call us, and the company in the Chinese unit saying, we have, and there's this issue. Wow. That is a lot to take in. And by the way, there's a story on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today about a very interesting situation with Intel hiring a TSMC, a Taiwan Semiconductor Chip executive, and Taiwan now investigating that executive's residence, saying that they're worried he's going to be taking TSMC secrets with them back to Intel.

9:17He's Taiwanese, but he does have a Ph.D. from Berkeley, and he worked at Intel starting in the 80s until 2004. He was responsible for a lot of Intel's superiority in the chips industry. He went on an advisory role for TSME starting last year, and the company was fine with that. They say they thought he was going back to academia. But when they found out he's going to Intel, it really sparked concerns. And I can understand that from Taiwan, because if Taiwan doesn't have the U.S. kind of beholden to its chips, It probably feels like it is much less secure in terms of a China takeover, in terms of leverage for that.

9:58So, you know, he's saying no way. Intel's saying they don't think there's any problem here, that this is a spurious kind of investigation. But you start thinking from a nationalistic point of view from Taiwan to see what's happening with this, how the United States is so eager to make sure we are no longer as reliant on Taiwan or China or anybody else. So it's geopolitically sensitive. It's also so commercially sensitive now, because in this A.I. race, whoever gets the leg up in providing those chips, whether it's to NVIDIA, whether it's to Google, whether it's everyone else. I mean, that is the growth.

10:32Right. So if they've got secrets from TSMC that are useful in A.I. production, which I'm sure they are, and I'm sure that's the core of the issue. Yeah, but it sounds like this guy in particular is like himself a walking reason, a guy who was very responsible at Intel for a lot of growth for 20 plus years before going to TSMC. You didn't see the United States kind of saying you can't leave with those secrets when you go and you go over. And by the way, maybe Intel just didn't have them. Yeah, but when he did, he was responsible for a lot of Intel superior when Intel was still leading. But you can bet the U.S.

11:11government's going to have a say in this, too, because they now own 10 percent of Intel. Right. That's true. That is true. So, you know, from the geopolitical perspectives on this, things are going to get hotter and hotter. Yeah, that's true. Cheese will be next. Coming up next on Squawk Pod, Black Fridays in full swing. Shopify president Harley Finkelstein has the data on when, where and how consumers are shopping this year. Consumers are kind of starting with a TikTok video. Then they're moving to the online store. Then they're moving to Roblox. Then they're going to the offline store. And so what we're trying to do with Shopify is power every single channel.

11:46Plus, CNBC's Courtney Reagan is on the ground at the mall. There's lines at Lululemon and Hollister. Sort of down this quarter, lots of Gen Zers. We'll be right back.

12:03This is Squawk Pod. Up on Becky, Q. You're watching Squawk Box right here on CNBC. I'm Becky Quick along with Steve Leesman and Robert Frank. Joe and Andrew are off today. The retail sector is shifting into high gear for Black Friday. Our Courtney Reagan is live at the mall in Paramus, New Jersey with the setup. Courtney, what does it look like? Hi, good morning, Robert. Perfect timing because truly the doors are just opening right here behind me. Aritzia is the store right behind me. There has been a line that has been forming and everyone is flowing in. And there's lines at Lululemon and Hollister sort of down this quarter.

12:38Lots of Gen Zers, as you might expect, hitting the stores early. And I can tell you from covering Black Friday over the last decade and a half, the cadence has changed for the day as far as wind traffic peaks. But it is still a very, very important day for retail. The National Retail Federation, as a matter of fact, does it predict that 130.4 million Americans will shop in some form today, making it the biggest day of this critical five-day stretch between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. Retail traffic counting firms forecast today will again be the biggest in-store shopping day of the year, even if not as many shoppers line up for those doorbusters as in year past.

13:15Still the biggest of 365 days of the year. Now, Adobe predicts that U.S. online sales will hit nearly$12 billion today. That's up more than 8 % from last year, which also is the biggest growth rate of the five big days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, what's often referred to as Cyber Week. Salesforce says the e-commerce sales on Black Friday did surpass Cyber Monday totals last year and think they will again this year. Now, consumers, they're already awake and shopping, yes, behind me, but also online. According to Captify's network, a three million websites, the top searched retail brands on Black Friday compared to last Black Friday, Apple.

13:53Those searches up 315%, H &M up 248%, Samsung up 133%, Marshalls, that's owned by TJX, up 116%, and Adidas up 115%. Now Thanksgiving Day, of course, the kickoff for what's considered this Cyber Week. As in recent years, orders surge post-Thanksgiving dinner. Third-party logistics company ShipBob says its peak was between 9 and 10 p.m. Thursday. And that peak hour was 182 % higher traffic-wise than the day's low point, which was between 7 and 8 a.m. on Thanksgiving. Toys and Games held the number one spot, led by sales of Tonys. That is one of those hot items, at least that was expected by retailers like Target and Walmart and Kohl's.

14:40Ship Bob's CMO Casey Armstrong is somewhat surprised that beauty surged to the number two spot as far as categories go at 118 percent growth compared to this point last year. So we will see what happens. But as the cadence has changed online with the peaks happening later in the day, same thing happens here in store. Yes, there's door busters. But in a lot of cases, the traffic really, really picks up as the day moves on. Back over to you guys. Yeah, Court, you mentioned H &M and Marshalls as being two standouts there. Those are obviously price sensitive retailers. What do you see in terms of promotions, price promotions?

15:19Paramus has a pretty wide range of brands. But are you seeing any big sort of price promotions yet? Or do you think we're going to see those closer to Christmas? So I would call the promotions fairly typical from what you see on a Black Friday. So 30, 40 % off in some cases, which are pretty big percentages off, particularly when you have a retailer like an H &M or behind me an Aritzia that is offering sort of a blanket discount across the store, which you don't often see for the rest of the year. But shoppers did tell Deloitte that they plan to spend about 4 % less on this five day stretch. But remember, what shoppers say they'll do and then what they actually do can end up being very different.

16:00Look at the consumer confidence numbers we got from the government this past week. They were pretty dour. But when you look at what the retailers were seeing and what they saw, they said actually shoppers are buying, especially when you offer them something that they find value in. And value means more than just what it costs. But if it increases performance, if it's a sporting good, for example, is what Dick's Sporting Goods says, or it has newness as far as a fashion apparel item, consumers are buying it and even without a discount. All right, Court, thanks so much. I know we're going to see you throughout the day.

16:30Thank you. You'll tell us later, I'm sure, how many actual shopping bags are full later today as opposed to people just coming in and looking. Yes, exactly. Thanks, Court.

16:42Black Friday is in full swing this morning, and our next guest is powering many of those sales. Harley Finkelstein is the president of Shopify. And, Harley, thank you for coming in today. Great to be here. You've got data that is not just up to the hour but up to the almost minute. We do, yeah. Yeah, we have minutes to minute data right now. As we talked about, we have about 12 % of all U.S. e-commerce on Shopify. Obviously, most people think that we support small business, which is our bread and butter. But some of your favorite brands from Aloe to Viore to Figs to Gymshark to Mattel also use Shopify as well.

17:15And so I have top product categories. I also have top trading. Is that live now? So this is live. Sales per minute to add. So right now, 2.4 million sales per minute. Becky, get off the phone, Becky. Becky, get off the phone. No, but 2.4 million as of when? I mean, since starting at midnight? Sorry, so right now we're seeing 2.4 million sales per minute. Every minute. Every minute. 23 ,000 change orders per minute. And since last night when we started counting, 17 million unique shoppers across all stores on Shopify. What's really cool is every one of those little dots. So that's a store and that's the arc is actually where it's being shipped to.

17:53Something else that's really cool. Every 26 seconds, a brand new entrepreneur is getting their first sale right now on Shopify. So those little fireworks, that's a new entrepreneur being born effectively on Shopify. It's like an angel gets their wings. Exactly. That's exactly right. Let's go into top product categories. So right now, top product categories, skin care, vitamins, supplements, activewear. Wow. So wellness, fitness. That's right. Skin care. Skin care, vitamins, supplements, activewear. So people are shopping for themselves right now. Right. Only people who do yoga are shopping, apparently.

18:25Well, makeup also is doing well. It's women who are shopping for themselves. I'm telling you that right now. Yoga women. Let's talk about trending merchant products. So right now, the Aloe Yoga Accolade Crew Neck Pullover is trending. Very soft. Cozy Earth Bamboo Sheets. And Merit Beauty Flush Balm is also trending right now. Here's something that's really interesting. Home seems to be the hero the last 12 hours or so. Last year was more the outside. You saw things like ski equipment, adventure equipment, camping. This year, you're seeing a lot of, like, Christmas tree three-way candles from Goose Creek, Carraway cookingware sets.

18:58You're seeing puzzles. You're seeing brackets. So back to the home, because we did the home in the pandemic. Last year, we got the home. We're tired of the home. I'm done with the home. I got a lot of stuff outside. Now we're back home. Now we're back home. How much of the physical sales that you are seeing are being driven by discounts? Interesting you say that. So one of the things we're also seeing is that certainly discounts are there, and people are waiting for it. But it seems to be that consumers are actually looking for value more than they're looking for discounts. meaning they're voting with their wallet to buy from brands they love.

19:24If they love Viore or they love On Running, they're waiting for discounts from those particular stores. The other thing that's happening is... How big are the discounts, really, on average? The truth is the discounts range from anywhere from 10 % up to 30%, which is usually average. Steve, you probably look at that as much as I do. But the thing that's interesting is that a lot of the traditional online retailers, so, for example, Gymshark, which is pure online, they're now opening up offline stores. Figs, which is the hospital scrub company, they open up physical stores near hospitals. so that during lunch breaks for health care workers, they can go downstairs and buy directly there as well.

19:57Tecovis, which makes, I think, the best cowboy boots on the planet, they're opening these saloons all over America, 50 stores. Tecovis? Tecovis. That's a pure online store, historically, that now have 50 offline stores where you can go and get your boots shined. Wait, an offline store is brick and mortar, right? Brick and mortar, Steve. Okay. Yeah. That's weird. You came at it from a different angle. Yeah, so brick and mortar. That's right. Now they're moving offline. Can we put you in the corner and come back to you every 10 minutes or so for a report? I just want one more thing, though. Something else that's happening is I you're going to hate this term, Steve, because you study this, too.

20:28But I do think also what's happening is it sort of feels like a post omni channel world right now. What I mean by that is consumers are kind of starting with a TikTok video. Then they're moving to the online store. Then they're moving to Roblox. Then they're going to the offline store. And so we're trying to do with Shopify is power every single channel so that consumers can find their products wherever they want to do it. as opposed to this online versus offline. It's really retail everywhere. Wait, you power bricks and mortar stores? We do, yeah. We have tons of physical retailers that are using Shopify.

20:55We can't let you go without asking what I think is probably one of the most important. How are we doing relative to last year or relative to prior years? We're doing better than last year. How much? Can you tell us? Can't tell you yet. When can you tell us? It's too early. On Monday. I'll be able to. Monday afternoon, I can tell you what we did. Last year, we did$11.5 billion over the four-day period on Shopify. The year before, it was$9.3 billion. We'll see what happens this week. Can you correct for inflation and for the growth of your business in that data? We do. I mean, obviously, we do have more merchants joining as well.

21:21In terms of inflation, obviously, one of the things we – I said this on the last earnings call – we have not seen our merchants increasing pricing all too much, which is really interesting. So they're actually keeping it fairly standard. But the thing that we are certainly seeing across the board is that this direct-to-consumer, these brands that have this connection with the end consumer, they're doing really well right now. Most of consumers' favorite brands are on Shopify. Bye. Becky has the thanks here, but I just want to say, Harley, stay in constant touch. Okay. Thanks. It means a lot. Yeah, Harley, thank you for coming in.

21:50We appreciate it. Appreciate it. And we want those numbers on Monday.