Cyber Monday this year was the biggest online shopping day in history.
According to data compiled by Adobe, online shoppers spent $3.45 billion online yesterday. That’s a 12.1 percent increase over last year, and close to 3 percent more than Adobe was expecting. In November, online shoppers have spent close to $40 billion, and Adobe projects that this holiday season will generate $91.6 billion in online sales.
“Cyber Monday was one for the history books this year, bringing in $3.45 billion and making it the biggest online shopping day ever,” Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst of Adobe Digital Insights said. “Consumers converted carts into purchases at record high levels before the season, and likely the year’s lowest price deals ended. It’s an incredible milestone, but it’s also incredible that Black Friday inched so close to Cyber Monday this year, generating only $110 million less in online sales. We’ll be watching this closely next year as Black Friday could be the one to top the records.”
Shoppers continue to use smartphones and tablets to browse and buy, with mobile devices accounting for 47 percent of online retail traffic yesterday and 31 percent of sales, or approximately $1.07 billion. Adobe found that people snuck away from their work stations during the day to shop on their tablets and phones, but opted for desktop and laptop browsing in the evening.
PlayStation 4 got the most social buzz of any item yesterday, and it was also one of the top selling electronics products along with its gaming competitor, Microsoft’s Xbox. Samsung 4K TVs, iPhone 7s and Amazon Fire devices were some of the other top-selling electronics. Lego sets, Nerf, Shopkins, Barbie and Pie Face Game were the top-selling toys.
Adobe says it based the report on aggregated and anonymous data from 23 billion visits to U.S. retail websites. Adobe Marketing Cloud is used for online transactions by a large number of online retailers.
Cyber Monday shoppers were in a giving mood as donations per visit increased 93 percent on desktops, 128 percent on tablets, and 53 percent on smartphones over the November average. After big spending days Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday is about donating whatever people might have left. Adobe found that visits to charities increased 26 percent on Giving Tuesday last year relative to the rest of the holiday season.
