Online retail sales in the U.S. on Black Friday will surpass $3 billion for the first time, including a record $1.1 billion from smartphones and tablets, according to data released this evening by Adobe, which measures online transactions through its retail marketing technology.
The record numbers bode well for Amazon and other online retailers as they gear up for what promises to be an even bigger day: Cyber Monday. Adobe estimates that this will be the biggest Cyber Monday on record, with more than $3.3 billion in projected U.S. online sales.
“The negative impact on online shopping we saw following the election has not been fully made up, but consumers are back online and shopping,” said Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst and director, Adobe Digital Insights, in an email about the data. “As spending ramps up on Black Friday, we are back on track. We still expect Cyber Monday to surpass Black Friday and become the largest online sales day in history with $3.36 Billion.”
Adobe says 56 percent of visits to retail websites on Black Friday were from mobile devices, and 40 percent of sales were made on mobile devices.
The report points out an interesting trend: “Large retailers (those in Internet Retailer’s top 100) have seen twice the growth in online sales compared to small retailers since the beginning of the season. Retailers that have invested in mobile, email and social have seen 30 percent more sales on average and 25 percent higher average order values. “
Adobe says it based the report on aggregated and anonymous data from 22 billion visits to U.S. retail websites, using predictive modeling to forecast the remainder of the day. Adobe Marketing Cloud is used for online transactions by a large number of online retailers.
According to the report, the five best-selling toys were Lego Creator Sets, electric scooters from Razor, Nerf Guns, DJI Phantom Drones and Barbie Dreamhouse. The five top selling electronic products on Black Friday were Apple iPads, Samsung 4k TVs, Apple Macbook Air, LG TVs and Microsoft Xbox, the company said in the report.
