Cyber Monday marks Target’s best day of online sales ever

But the value of merchandise was higher for purchases made on tablets, with the average order hitting $140.70, exceeding desktop purchases averaging $138.30, and smartphone buys of $111.29, according to IBM.

The entire holiday weekend (Thanksgiving through Monday) brought in a total of $11 billion in online sales, up 15% from a year ago, according to Adobe.

Analytics company ComScore, said online sales on Thanksgiving Day were up nine percent to $1.1 billion, going over the billion dollar mark for the second straight year, and Black Friday was even stronger at $1.66 billion in online sales, up 10 percent over 2014. But whether Cyber Monday can hold on to its relevance will be a big question next year as deals continue to appear earlier.

Mobile apps also played a bigger role, such as the expansion of Target’s partnership with the app Curbside, which allows customers to place an order and pick it up at a Target store without leaving their vehicle. In all, Adobe attributed $514m of the day’s sales to mobile, including $313m on from smartphones (with $205m coming via iPhones and $107m via Android) and $201m from tablets ($170m via iPad, $28m via Android).

Kathye Gaines of Consumer Credit Counseling says all shoppers need to keep track of their purchases, but also use credit rather than debit cards for their security benefits.

“We’re excited that millions of customers will be opening new Amazon devices this holiday season”. “And from our data, we saw greater retail sales generated prior to the Black Friday weekend, which is a result of retailers successfully elongating the holiday season”. “You can’t read into just one weekend”.

Black Friday was the Tesco Direct website’s busiest ever 24 hours online and Currys PC World’s website had over 6.5 million visitors between Friday and Sunday.

This contributed to a 16 percent rise in online sales to $3.07 billion. IBM said mobile shopping reached “record highs for both traffic and sales”. Top online shopping destinations included Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Target and Best Buy. Sales fell 10.4 percent from a year earlier to $20.43 billion, according to research firm ShopperTrak.