Saudi shopping seasons: what 6 years of card spending data show
We measured every White Friday, Saudi National Day and Founding Day week since 2020 against the weeks before, sector by sector, using the Saudi Central Bank's weekly point of sale data. Clothing rose in White Friday week in all 6 years; electronics never rose more than 4.0%.
The Khaleej SEO team
Published · Updated · 8 min read
Key finding: in Saudi Arabia, card spending on clothing and footwear in stores rose in White Friday week in each of the last 6 years, by 9.4% to 25.3% over the 4 weeks before. Spending on electronics, the category most White Friday advertising is built around, never rose more than 4.0% in stores in that week. In National Day week, the sector that rises every year is furniture, by 14.2% to 37.4%.
These results come from our analysis of the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) weekly point of sale report for every week from May 2020 to March 2026. Below are the numbers by season and sector, how we calculated them, and what they mean for stores planning their Google visibility before each season.
What the data is, and what it is not
SAMA publishes the value of card payments at points of sale in Saudi Arabia every week, split by sector and city. Reporters at Argaam, Arab News, Okaz and other outlets cover it weekly. We used the full weekly archive as republished by the KAPSARC Data Portal, which carries SAMA as the publisher.
Two limits matter when you read the figures:
- It is in-store card spending, not e-commerce. Online payments are not in this report. A sector that looks flat here may still be busy online; SAMA’s monthly online card figures are in our Saudi e-commerce statistics.
- It measures value, not volume. A rise can come from more purchases, bigger baskets or higher prices.
We checked the week dates against a published SAMA figure: SAMA’s total for the week ended 10 August 2024, as reported by Argaam, was SAR 13.1 billion, which matches the archive row for the week that starts on Sunday 4 August 2024. Every week below therefore runs Sunday to Saturday.
White Friday: a clothing week, not an electronics week
We took the week that contains the Friday of White Friday each year and compared it with the average of the 4 weeks before.
| Sector | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clothing and footwear | +25.3% | +14.7% | +9.4% | +11.5% | +23.9% | +24.1% |
| Furniture | +15.9% | +8.8% | -3.7% | +3.2% | +13.5% | +3.6% |
| Electronics | +0.9% | -17.2% | -10.8% | -4.6% | +4.0% | +2.2% |
| All sectors | +8.2% | -0.8% | -8.6% | -6.0% | +7.5% | +9.2% |
Clothing is the only sector of these that rose in all 6 years. Using a longer 8-week baseline makes the clothing result stronger, not weaker: +16.5% to +42.3%. Total in-store spending, by contrast, rose in 3 years and fell in 3, so “White Friday lifts spending” is not something this data supports for stores as a whole. The 2022 week also overlapped the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, which may explain part of that year’s dip.
The electronics result is the most useful one for anyone planning a campaign. Electronics shoppers compare prices online and a large share of that spending likely moves to online stores, which this data cannot show. What it does show is that the physical store is not where the White Friday electronics peak happens. For what this means for an electronics store’s pages, see our guide to SEO for electronics and appliance stores. For when people search in the weeks before the sale, see our White Friday statistics.
Saudi National Day: furniture and electronics
For National Day on 23 September, we compared the week containing that date with the 4 weeks before.
| Sector | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Furniture | +37.4% | +32.0% | +23.1% | +14.2% | +25.9% | +28.2% |
| Electronics | +3.5% | +4.6% | +14.9% | +18.7% | +18.4% | +6.2% |
| Clothing and footwear | +26.0% | +1.8% | -10.8% | -1.1% | +9.5% | -4.9% |
| All sectors | -1.6% | -7.1% | -9.2% | -8.9% | +3.9% | -9.2% |
Furniture and electronics rose in all 6 years; with an 8-week baseline, furniture rose 15.3% to 49.1%. The weeks before National Day include the start of the school year, when spending on education and school supplies is high, so we also tested the 8-week baseline. The furniture and electronics results hold on both.
Founding Day: furniture and electronics again, with one exception
Founding Day on 22 February was first celebrated in 2022, so there are 5 years of data.
| Sector | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Furniture | +15.3% | +21.8% | +17.0% | +8.4% | -6.0% |
| Electronics | +2.5% | +25.1% | +32.1% | +3.0% | -8.0% |
| Clothing and footwear | -2.7% | +0.8% | +10.7% | +4.9% | +40.3% |
| All sectors | -3.9% | -4.1% | -1.3% | -2.9% | -5.2% |
From 2022 to 2025, furniture and electronics rose in Founding Day week every year. In 2026 the pattern broke: Founding Day week fell in the first full week of Ramadan, restaurant and cafe spending dropped by 26.2%, and clothing jumped by 40.3%. When two seasons overlap, the bigger one wins, so we treat 2026 as a Ramadan week, not a Founding Day week. The weekly pattern of Ramadan itself, in searches and in card spending by sector, is in Ramadan shopping statistics.
What this means for online stores and their SEO
Seasonal demand shows up in search before it shows up at the till. For stores, three practical points follow from the data:
- Fashion stores should treat White Friday as their season. Build or refresh the White Friday collection pages in Arabic and English well before November, so Google has time to find and rank them. A page published the week before rarely ranks in time.
- Furniture and electronics stores have two strong weeks outside White Friday. National Day in September and Founding Day in February both brought consistent rises. A dedicated, indexable page for each offer, kept at the same address every year, builds visibility year after year instead of starting from zero. For furniture stores, our guide to SEO for furniture stores in Saudi Arabia covers the room, set and made-to-order pages to build around these weeks.
- Keep seasonal pages permanent. Use one address per season without a year in it and update the content each year. Deleting last year’s page throws away the links and history it earned. Our White Friday SEO plan for stores sets out the steps and the six-week timing.
Jewellery stores follow a different calendar again: card spending on jewellery rose in White Friday week in only 2 of the 6 years, and it peaks in the weeks before Eid al-Fitr. Our guide to SEO for jewellery stores in Saudi Arabia sets out that data.
The Arabic search terms for each season vary in spelling and dialect, so the keyword work matters as much as the page itself; our guide to Arabic keyword research for the Gulf shows how to find the variants. Stores on Salla can follow our Salla store SEO guide to set up category pages that can rank, and our Salla SEO services cover the full build for merchants who want it done for them.
For larger catalogues, seasonal pages are one part of a wider plan; see how our e-commerce SEO services handle category architecture and seasonal landing pages across the Gulf, or how we approach SEO in Saudi Arabia as a whole market.
Method
- Source: SAMA weekly point of sale transactions by sector, value in thousand SAR, all cities combined. Weeks from 10 May 2020 to 6 July 2025 come from the KAPSARC series “Point of Sale Transactions by Sector and City”; weeks from 13 July 2025 to 22 March 2026 come from its newer detailed series, which SAMA publishes with updated sector groups.
- Season week: the Sunday to Saturday week that contains the day: the Friday of White Friday (the Friday after the fourth Thursday of November), 23 September, and 22 February.
- Calculation: value in the season week divided by the average value of the 4 weeks before, minus 1. We repeated it with an 8-week baseline; both are in the CSV.
- Sector groups: from July 2025 SAMA reports “Apparel, Clothing and Accessories” and “Furniture and Home Supplies”, which are broader than the earlier “Clothing and Footwear” and “Furniture”. The all-sector totals match exactly across both series. Each percentage compares a week with weeks from the same series, so the change is comparable even where the group is broader.
- Not adjusted for inflation, price changes, or other events in the same week, apart from the notes above.
Download: the full results table (CSV), with 7 sectors, 3 seasons, every year, and both baselines.
How to cite
Khaleej SEO analysis of SAMA weekly point of sale data, 2020 to 2026: https://khaleejseo.com/blog/saudi-shopping-seasons-card-spending/
We update this page when SAMA’s archive adds the next season’s weeks. Journalists who want a chart for a specific sector or city can contact us at hello@khaleejseo.com.
Want your store ready before the next season?
If you are not sure whether your seasonal and category pages can rank in time for White Friday, a free SEO audit of your store shows what Google sees today and what to fix first.
Arabic and English SEO specialists for e-commerce stores, dental clinics and travel companies. Our team has led SEO for some of the largest e-commerce brands in the Gulf, across 7 MENA markets.