US Cyber Monday online sales hit record of 3.45 billion

Overall, online shopping revenues in the USA over the entire Thanksgiving weekend (November 24-27) came in at $9.36 billion, a 16.4 percent increase compared to 2015.

Early morning remains the busiest time for online shopping – 38.9% of those shopping on Cyber Monday shopped first thing in the morning, while 33.9% shopped in the morning, 16% shopped over lunch and 31% shopped in the early afternoon. Now all that’s left to do is look at the numbers to see just how much everyone spent, and how. For example, mobile accounted for 41% of retail site traffic, with peak mobile activity on Thanksgiving Day.

This year, both Black Friday and Cyber Monday set sales records… for online shoppers.

The increase in the use of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets far surpassed the overall sales increase.

During this time of year, a lot of the conversation focuses on Black Friday marketing strategies and executions.

“Cyber Monday is on track to be the biggest online shopping day ever, surpassing our forecast by nearly $27 million or 0.8 percent”, said Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst, Adobe Digital Insights. Clearly, these figures prove that online holiday shopping has become a multi-day event, with Thanksgiving Day itself and Black Friday gaining more online importance.

Unemployment rates hit their lowest in eight years in October and hourly wages this year saw their biggest increase since 2009, boosting consumers’ confidence and spending.

After all the holiday season makes us all a little more generous!

While Black Friday traditionally involved big discounts at physical stores and Cyber Monday when shoppers could fetch a bargain online, a number of Australian retailers made a decision to change things up. Both Adobe’s and PayPals report show how Black Friday stretches across a few days, instead of taking place on Friday, and then again on Cyber Monday.

Consumers are expected to spend $636 on average on holiday purchases this year, up 3 percent from their 2015 spending plans, according to NPD.

Lastly, PayPal is expecting this year’s Giving Tuesday – which is today – to help more charities.

Adobe collects the data by measuring 80 percent of all online transactions from the top 100 US retailers. That’s an increase of 15.2% from 2015, when billion was spent over the period.