Last week, we asked if Cyber Monday was losing its luster, as various reports and studies were finding that interest in the online shopping holiday seemed go be on the decline, as the holiday shopping period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday becomes just more of constant buying stretch. Some indicated that the deals on Cyber Monday weren’t as good as those on Thanksgiving and Black Friday as well.
Either way, it was still a pretty good Cyber Monday for retailers – particularly the big ones – according to data from Adobe.
“Cyber Monday sales were up 16 percent this year, with the biggest retailers seeing the biggest gains,” said Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst for Adobe Digital Index. “The early birds caught the worms on Cyber Monday, with shoppers getting the steepest discounts in the early morning hours.”
Total online sales reached $2.65 billion, according to the report. The top 25 retailers each generated $30 million or more on Cyber Monday, and they saw online sales increase by 25% at nearly $1.8 billion. Smaller retailers (those that generated $2 million or less), grew by 5%.
As for the timing, consumers saw the highest discounts of 23% in the early morning hours and 54% of online sales came in outside of normal working hours. Adobe highlights the following trends:
Total Online Spend: Consumers spent $2.65 billion online on Cyber Monday, a 16 percent growth year-over-year (YoY). Shopping reached its peak between 9 and 10 p.m. ET. The top 25 U.S. retailers (brick-and-mortar and online-only) saw 25 percent YoY growth. Smaller retailers increased online sales by only five percent. Between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday, total online sales came in at $9.6 billion, a 20 percent growth YoY. The season’s total, between November 1 and December 1, rose 14 percent YoY to reach $37.9 billion.
Shopping Trends: Consumers were able to get the best deals with discounts reaching 23 percent on average during early morning hours. By the end of the day the average discount climbed by two percentage points to 21 percent. Online shopping occurred mostly outside of work hours (54 percent), with 41 percent coming in after 6 p.m. ET even at elevated price levels.
Mobile Trends: Smartphones and tablets continued to drive sales. Nineteen percent of total online sales ($328 million) were driven by mobile devices, flat compared to last year. Smartphones and tablets drove equal shares with iOS devices generating 79 percent of total mobile sales.
Adobe’s analysis is based on aggregated and anonymous data of more than 400 million visits to 4,500 retail websites. The company claims more than $7 out of $10 spent online with the top 500 U.S. retailers are measured by Adobe Marketing Cloud.
Other reports had Cyber Monday sales growth lower than what Adobe found.
Image via Thinkstock
