Black Friday e-commerce spending popped 7.5% from a year earlier, reaching a record $9.8 billion in the U.S., according to an Adobe Analytics report, a further indication that price-conscious consumers want to spend on the best deals and are hunting for those deals online.

“We’ve seen a very strategic consumer emerge over the past year where they’re really trying to take advantage of these marquee days, so that they can maximize on discounts,” said Vivek Pandya, a lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights.

Black Friday’s spending spike reflects a consumer who is more willing to spend than in 2022, when gas and food prices were painfully high.

Pandya noted that impulse purchases may have played a role in the Black Friday growth since $5.3 billion of the online sales came from mobile shopping. He noted that influencers and social media advertising have made it easier for consumers to get comfortable spending on their mobile devices.

Still, shoppers are price-sensitive, managing tighter budgets due to last year’s record inflation and interest rates. According to the Adobe survey, $79 million of the sales came from consumers who opted for the ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ flexible payment method to stretch their wallets, up 47% from last year.

The best-selling categories of Black Friday, the Adobe report found, were electronics like smartwatches and televisions, along with toys and gaming. Meanwhile, home-repair tools underperformed. Pandya said top sellers directly correlated to whichever products had the best discounts.

Adobe gathers its data by analyzing one trillion visits to U.S. retail websites, 18 product categories and 100 million unique items. It does not track brick-and-mortar retail transactions.

A Mastercard analysis of this year’s Black Friday sales found that in-store sales rose just over 1% versus online sales, which grew by over 8% compared to last year.

“I do think the paradigm has changed around the in-store Black Friday experience, the long lines and things like that,” said Adobe’s Pandya.

Consumers are “more in the driver’s seat” when they are online shopping, he added, because it is easier to make side-by-side price comparisons and secure a better price.

Retailers are aware of the rise of deal-hunting consumers and want to capture as many of them as possible. Companies like Best Buy and Lowe’s have both announced higher discounting levels. Other retailers like Target and Ulta Beauty have rolled out pop-up promotions that offer 24-hour discounts on certain brands and items.

Black Friday kept the momentum going from the day before on Thanksgiving when online sales totaled $5.6 billion, according to a prior Adobe analysis.

Adobe expects the spending strength to hold over the weekend and through Cyber Monday with the biggest bargains still ahead. The report forecasts that online shoppers will spend roughly $10 billion over the course of Saturday and Sunday, and a record $12 billion on Cyber Monday.

But spending will likely begin to taper off deeper into the holiday season, according to Pandya. Cyber Monday, as the last major deal day of the holiday season, could be the final spending spike on non-essential goods for the rest of the year.

“We do expect growth to weaken because those discounts will weaken and they are dictating a lot in terms of buyer behavior this season,” said Pandya.

He noted that there are always gift-givers who procrastinate their holiday shopping so spending could continue to trickle in late into December. But the real growth surges, he said, “end up being in November and Thanksgiving week.”

Stocks fell sharply once again Wednesday, as escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine push the major averages to fresh lows for the year so far.

The S&P 500 fell 1.8% to 4,225.50, closing nearly 12% from its Jan. 3 record close as it slid deeper into correction. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 464.85 points to 33,131.76. The technology-focused Nasdaq Composite lost 2.6% to 13,037.49.

The Dow and Nasdaq closed below their Jan. 24 intra-day lows on Wednesday. The S&P 500 dipped below its late-January low before closing marginally above it.

Wednesday’s decline pushed the Nasdaq closer to bear market territory, as it sits more than 18% from its November closing record.

“Stocks are going to struggle to find direction until financial markets have a clear answer on whether the Russia-Ukraine crisis will have a diplomatic solution or regional warfare,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst with OANDA.

Stocks moved broadly lower with reopening plays like airlines and cruise lines in the red, as well as some technology names. Delta Air Lines lost 4.1%, and Tesla was off by 7%. E-commerce giant Amazon fell 3.6%, and Apple dropped 2.6%.

Retailers were a sea of red with Macy’s falling 5.2% and TJX Companies dropping 4.2%. Best Buy lost 2.1% and Nordstrom fell 3.4%.

Meanwhile, home retailing giant Lowe’s closed higher after beating earnings forecasts and announcing sales rose 5%.

Investors have been juggling brewing tensions between Russia and Ukraine. The Ukraine Ministry of Digital Transformation said Wednesday there was another mass DDoS [denial of service] attack on Wednesday that prevented certain entities from accessing government websites, NBC reported.

Ukraine also warned its citizens against traveling to Russia and to leave the neighboring country, if they are there. Meanwhile, the UK warned that it was ready to impose more sanctions on Russia.

On Wednesday the Biden administration announced it will allow sanctions to move forward on the company in charge of building Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, following a first tranche of sanctions against Russia Tuesday that targets Russian banks, the country’s sovereign debt and three individuals.

“Today, I have directed my administration to impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG and its corporate officers,” Biden said in a statement Wednesday. “These steps are another piece of our initial tranche of sanctions in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.”

The VanEck Russia ETF, a U.S.-traded security which invests in top Russian companies, dropped nearly 10% on Wednesday.

“While uncertainties remain, our work shows that historically military/crisis events tend to inject volatility into markets and often cause a short-term dip, but stocks tend to eventually rebound unless the event pushes the economy into recession,” Eylem Senyuz, senior global macro strategist at Truist, wrote in a note to clients.

“Investor sentiment also suggests the bar for positive surprises is low,” Senyuz added.

Investors are also facing concerns about record inflation and the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy pivot which could result is rate hikes as soon as next month.

Wall Street is betting that there’s a 100% chance of a rate hike at the Federal Reserve’s March meeting, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.

On Tuesday the Dow fell more than 480 points. The S&P 500 shed 1.01%. The Nasdaq Composite declined 1.23% for its fourth straight negative session.