Online shoppers in the United States spent $1.465 billion on Monday—what marketers have dubbed Cyber Monday—making the day the most lucrative ever for e-retailers, comScore Inc. says. U.S. shoppers over the Thanksgiving weekend increased spending by 21.0%, to $4.327 billion this year from $3.577 billion in 2011.
Spending on Cyber Monday 2012 was 17.1% higher than on Cyber Monday 2011, when consumers shelled out $1.251 billion, the web measurement firm says. This year’s Cyber Monday also stands as the year’s second billion-dollar day for e-commerce—Black Friday (also known as the first day after Thanksgiving) brought in $1.042 billion for e-retailers, a 28% increase over the same day in 2011.
“Despite some news reports suggesting that Cyber Monday might be declining in importance, the day has once again set an online spending record at nearly $1.5 billion,” says comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “However, it is also clear that the holiday promotional period has begun even earlier this year, with strong online sales occurring on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. Now, we shall see the extent to which continuing and attractive retailer promotions are able to boost sales for the remainder of the week.”
ComScore says that online consumers so far this holiday shopping season have spent approximately $16.4 billion, up 16% from the same period last year. ComScore measured spending between Nov. 1 and Nov. 26.
For Cyber Monday, comScore reports these year-over-year sales increases for the following product categories:
• Digital content and subscriptions, 28%
• Consumer electronics, 24%
• Computer hardware, 22%
• Video games, consoles and accessories, 18%
• Jewelry and watches, 17%
For this year’s first Monday after Thanksgiving—when marketers and retailers encourage consumers to shop from work computers—some 47% of sales stemmed from workplaces, down from 50% in 2011, comScore says. Buying from home accounted for another 47% of spending, with the remainder coming from consumers overseas purchasing from U.S. web sites.
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