Cyber Monday online shopping spree tops $3 billion

Last year, strong demand for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles drove hardware sales up 25 per cent at Game Digital (GMD) in the 11 weeks to 10 January 2015, with the video game retailer making 16 per cent of all console sales in the four days bookended by Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The day has lost some of its luster as retailers push sales forward on the calendar to Thanksgiving and the Friday after the holiday.

Last week, my dental hygienist told me she was taking Monday off “for Cyber Monday”. Spending on Google Shopping grew 36% YoY on Thanksgiving, and 40% YoY on Black Friday.

The National Retail Federation estimates overall sales for November and December will rise 3.7 percent to $630.5 billion compared with past year. Traditionally Black Friday is a U.S. holiday for many people who rush to the shopping malls whilst by Cyber Monday everyone is back at work and surreptitiously buying online. Heck, some research indicates that the average Black Friday discount at J.C. Penney and Kohl’s was over 66%.

In a blog post, the company said that due to its additional 15% off site-wide on Cyber Monday, they had to place customers in virtual lines in order to manage high traffic and order volume.

Cyber Monday has come and gone, and the lesson for retailers is a familiar one: invest in online.

And yet online sales on Monday were on pace for a record-breaking day, with forecasters from Adobe projecting that $3 billion would be spent online before the deals bonanza was over. Additionally, as more people choose to do their shopping online, regular stores will have to find a way to attract shoppers again in the coming years to prevent the downward trend from continuing.

“Mobile has put shoppers in the driver’s seat this year, and they expect great deals and gift ideas throughout the holiday season, rather than just on individual days”, Jay Hanson, VP of Merchandising at eBay tells TechCrunch.

The Cyber Monday web increase came after a significant jump in Black Friday sales online, estimated at about a 14 percent rise, while in-store traffic declined 13.6 percent.

Online shopping can often trump store visits by giving consumers the freedom to shop whenever they want without leaving the house.

Brick-and-mortar sales on Thanksgiving Day dropped to $1.8 billion from just over $2 billion in 2014. Top online shopping destinations included Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Target and Best Buy.

Wal-Mart started offering all of its 2,000 Cyber Monday deals – quadruple the 500 online deals it offered previous year – starting 8 p.m. on Sunday the evening before.

It’s hard to say whether these impressive Amazon numbers are skewing high because Slice’s users are more active online shoppers, but Amazon did post a release, touting its own success.