Cyber Monday record sales

A decade ago, during the happy years before the recession, retailers noticed a spike in online sales the Monday after Thanksgiving. The Times also says Black Friday as a one-off holiday sales boost is eroding – deals are being offered for longer periods and on more days throughout the season and year now. More specifically, the limited time offer deals-also known as “Lightning Deals”-that Amazon offers have taken the day dedicated to binge shopping and discount scouting to a new level”.

The current record for one-day online sales was set last week on Black Friday, when $2.74 billion worth of merchandise was sold.

According to TIME, Black Friday sales fell from $11.6 billion in 2014 to $10.4 billion in 2015.

Sales on Cyber Monday, the busiest day of the year for internet shopping, were up 14% from a year earlier at $490 million between midnight to 10 a.m. ET, according to Adobe Digital Index, part of Adobe Systems Inc, which provides digital marketing and media solutions to merchants.

So if you plan on doing some Cyber Monday shopping, here is a look at some of the best sitewide discounts. And, in the past, when Wal-Mart released select Cyber Monday deals on Sunday evening, traffic increased significantly, it said.

“Retailers are prepared for a mobile-driven day of shopping and have optimized the mobile shopping experience to make Cyber Monday shopping easier and more dynamic for their customers”, NRF senior VP and Shop.org executive director Vicki Cantrell said.

Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru said even though more people are shopping online and on their phones throughout the season, Cyber Monday will still drive sales from its name alone. If sales hit $3 billion, that would be an increase of 12% over last year and mark the largest online sales day of the year. A recent National Retail Federation survey revealed that 79.6percent of the respondents – or almost 184 million US shoppers – said they would or may shop on Cyber Monday. But in recent years, an anti-consumerist backlash to Black Friday has bubbled up.

Shoppers traded bricks for clicks on Monday, flocking online to snap up “Cyber Monday” deals on everything from cashmere sweaters to Star Wars toys.

Amazon is offering new deals every five minutes through December 5 double the cadence of past year.

By comparison, e-commerce sales on Thanksgiving rose 18 percent, but placed third at $1.7 billion.

“There are certain hot products, hoverboards seem to be a phenomenon, they’re selling out everywhere”, said Scot Wingo, chairman of ChannelAdvisor, which provides e-commerce services to retailers. “It’s a random bit of cocktail party conversation I like to bring up sometimes”, Davis says.