Mobile to fuel $27bn online spend in run-up to Christmas

During those five days, which kicks off Thanksgiving Day and is the busiest stretch in retail every year, mobile traffic is predicted to account for 56.9 percent of total online retail visits, a sizeable rise from the 48.5 percent counted last year, according to IBM Watson.

But Justin Norwood, an analyst for IBM’s (NYSE:IBM) IBM Watson Trend, another retail tracking index, told IBD his company expects 14.5% US online sales growth vs. last year’s Black Friday.

While many of those that “window shop” on their phones don’t buy, mobile sales are expected to jump to 36.1 percent of online sales.

“But this weekend is not the end-all-be-all; it’s important to remember, there will be several important weekends to keep an eye on before we wrap up the holiday season”.

Internet consumers averaged $98.10 per user.

Besides the Star Wars toys, other bestsellers include the Pie Face Game, Crayola Super Art Coloring Kit, Samsung 4K TVs, Apple iPad Air 2, Xbox One, Sony Playstation and Beats by Dr. Dre headphones. The average order value increased by seven percent year-over-year (YOY) to $125.63. November 11, known as “Singles’ Day”, set a new USA sales record with $1.35 billion and offered stronger discounts than expected for apparel and electronics, averaging 20%. Forrester predicts online sales to increase 11% to $95 billion, with mobile sales accounting for more of the total.

Overall, online sales are still a bit lower than expected, Gaffney said. Promotions on Monday, November 23, and Tuesday, November 24, were in-line with Adobe’s predictions, 22% and 21% discounts on average, respectively. – Top Online Retailers: Amazon and eBay lead online retailers with more than 20 million social media conversations, almost two and a half times more social buzz than the top five brick-and-click retailers (Target, WalMart, Gap, H&M and Best Buy) combined.

Adobe’s insights are based on aggregated and anonymous data from more than 1.7 billion visits to 4,500 retail websites.

United Kingdom consumers are forecast to spend $27bn on ecommerce in the run up to Christmas, with the November 27, popularly know as Black Friday, set to be the biggest day for online shopping.