The week leading to Mother’s Day in the United States, May 10, produced an approximately 15% increase in year-over-year web sales, according to an IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark report.  

The report offers no dollar specifics but does point to where online consumers seeking to thank, impress, pay homage to or otherwise celebrate maternal figures spent their money. For example, in the week leading up Mother’s Day—that is, May 3- 9—consumers in the United States:

• Increased their online apparel spending 25.1% year over year.

• Increased their online spending with department stores by 19.3% year over year.

• Increased online jewelry purchases by 11.4% year over year.

• Increased their online gift spending 4.2% year over year.

The IBM report also provides a wider scope of spending as Mother’s Day approached this year, and finds that between April 5 and May 2:

• Online sales of gifts increased 90.7%, as compared to the average of the previous four weeks.

• Online sales of jewelry increased 40.0% as measured by the same time scale.

• Online sales from department stores increased 21.5%.

• Online sales of apparel increased 4.0%.

The week leading to Mother’s Day also proved more mobile than in 2014, as judging by year-over year figures. The report finds:

• Mobile traffic accounted for 46.3% of online traffic, a 21% increase.

• Mobile sales increased approximately 43%, accounting for 24.4% of online sales during the period; tablets accounted for 13.0% of those sales, with smartphones accounting for the rest. “One driver behind the continued success of mobile for certain gift and jewelry sites was that they optimized first-page (e.g., above the fold) merchandising on mobile devices to increase mobile conversion rates and reduce mobile abandonment,” the report notes.

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