Mondays are proving lucrative for online retailers.
U.S. e-commerce sales on Dec. 7, at $1.92 billion, exceeded those on Thanksgiving Day ($1.73 billion), making it the fourth-highest online sales day of the year, according to data from Adobe Inc.’s Adobe Digital Index. Dec. 7 also is the biggest online shopping day in many European countries, says Tamara Gaffney, principal research analyst, Adobe Digital Index.
Dec. 14 is projected to be the third-best online selling day this year in the United States, with $1.95 billion in sales. The Monday after Thanksgiving, known as Cyber Monday, was the largest ever U.S. online sales day, with $3.07 billion, according to Adobe. The Friday after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, ranked second this year at $2.74 billion.
“Online shopping growth, however, has slowed to 7.7% after a huge Thanksgiving weekend which is 2.3% lower than November growth. Discount levels seen last week are gone, but consumers should still shop as early as possible since the prices will continue to climb through December,” Gaffney says. Adobe’s findings draw from aggregated data from 3.7 billion visits to 4,500 retail sites.
After this week, shipping prices are only going up. The arrival of Dec. 14 prompts a shipping cost increase of 15% daily, Adobe says. By Dec. 20, shipping prices will be double what they are on Dec. 13.
Product discounts will continue, but they won’t be as generous, with the average at 17%-21%. Items also will be harder to find as out-of-stock levels increase from current levels, which are 5%-10% higher than they were a year ago, Adobe says.
Other findings from Adobe include:
- Mobile transactions accounted for 27% of online sales revenue during the first six days of December.
- Average order value is on the decline. It peaked on Thanksgiving at $162 and now is $110, indicating that consumers are hunting for low-ticket items.
- The top online sales growth since Thanksgiving Day can be found in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where sales are up 30% year over year, with an average order value of $129.72, followed by Houston, where e-commerce sales are up 26% with an average order of $137.25.
- Online sales barely grew in Atlanta, up 4% compared with 2014, and in Fargo, N.D., up 2%.