Cyber Monday Sales Expected to Top $3 Billion

Springboard Insights and Marketing Director Diane Wehrle stated: “The volume of activity in retail stores over the Friday and Saturday of the Black Friday weekend is lower than a year ago and the evidence clearly points to the fact that much of this is due to a significant increase in shoppers using online to participate in the event”.

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

“Many retailers enticed consumers to spend early with “pre-Cyber Monday” promotions, and many shoppers responded”. “That makes Cyber Monday a meek day for margins – and that is a challenge for retailers”, said Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru. “Online traffic was so astronomical that several retailers experienced temporary outages and slow checkouts, but that didn’t stall consumer spending”. Despite the looming specter of ad-blockers, display ads saw the largest growth of 50 percent over past year in pointing people to sales.

Stronger than expected discounts averaged 21.5%, and shoppers turned to smaller discounts promoted on shopper helper and review sites like RetailMeNot and CNET (31.9% share of online sales), followed by search ads (26.6% share) and direct sales (21.3% share). To compile its estimates, Adobe says it measures 80 percent of all online transactions from the top 100 U.S. retailers.

IBM reports that mobile sales on Black Friday were even higher, and grew 23.8% to account for 40% of online sales.

Social media helped boost digital sales, Adobe said. Although Black Friday sales are dwindling, Cyber Monday sales are soaring. Both days were down slightly compared to 2014, according to ShopperTrak.

Only 2.19 percent of visits to websites resulted in a sale, compared with 2.18 percent previous year.

“It’s important to view the decrease in context”. In the past four days, 102 million people said they took advantage of the in-store discounts, while 103 million shoppers opted out of in-store purchases in order to shop in the comfort of their own homes. Still, overall holiday spending is expected to increase about 4 percent this season. “Most importantly, the success of the holiday season doesn’t hinge on the performance of a single day”.

Meanwhile, according to Adobe, the Cyber Monday sales in the United States will possibly reach $3 billion for the first time, up 12 percent from 2014.