Online sales momentum built up over a record-setting holiday shopping weekend is expected to carry over into Cyber Monday.
Just-released data from the National Retail Federation in conjunction with Prosper Insights & Analytics shows that 122.1 million shoppers are expected to shop online tomorrow, up less than 1% from 121.3 million last year. Prosper surveyed 4,330 shoppers on Nov. 25 and 26 to come up with its projections.
This comes on the heels of a record-setting Black Friday. Data from Adobe Digital Insights shows shoppers spent $3.34 billion online on the day after Thanksgiving, up 21.6% year over year.
“With the full day total coming in at $3.34 billion, Black Friday may have just dethroned Cyber Monday’s position as the largest online shopping day of the year,” says Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst for Adobe Digital Insights.
Nor was turkey the only thing shoppers feasted on this year either on Thanksgiving as consumers showed a healthy appetite for the online deals offered by retailers, spending $1.93 billion online on Thanksgiving.
Prosper’s data also shows online shopping was more popular this year than last year.
“This weekend 43.8% of consumers indicated they shopped online and that’s up 4.2% year over year,” says Pam Goodfellow, principal analyst at Prosper. “40% shopped in store, down 3.7% from last year. These figures are not mutually exclusive. Consumers can and did shop both channels.” Prosper does not have data on how many shoppers bought online and picked up their online purchases in store.
Meanwhile, comScore Inc. reported today that shoppers spent a combined $3.257 billion on desktop on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, up 18.4% from $2.752 billion last year. Black Friday in particular saw a significant year-over-year sales gain, jumping to $1.970 billion on desktop, up 19% from $1.656 billion last year.
“Black Friday continues to gain in importance online – this year becoming the third biggest online desktop spending day of all-time after Cyber Monday 2015 and 2014,” comScore CEO Gian Fulgoni said.
Shoppers were much more bargain-conscious this year than in previous years.
On a conference call Sunday afternoon, NRF president and CEO Matthew Shay told reporters 36% of all shoppers surveyed said 100% of their purchases were items that were on sale, up from 11% of all shoppers surveyed last year.
That contributed to the average spend per shopper over the weekend dropping 3.5% year-over-year to $289.19 this year, compared to $299.60 last year.
“Consumers can now spend less and get more,” Shay said. “That’s been borne out by the promotions we’ve seen and the survey results.”
Retailers should brace themselves for a surge in business first thing in the morning.
According to the NRF and Prosper, the bulk of all online shopping on Cyber Monday (38.9%) will take place in the early morning hours as shoppers are just waking up, while 31% will do their online shopping after lunch.
comScore is projecting shoppers will spend in the neighborhood of $3.5 billion on Cyber Monday.
“Looking ahead, we expect Cyber Monday 2016 to surpass $2.5 billion in desktop spending and $1 billion on mobile commerce to become the leading online spending day for the seventh straight year as people use down time at work to continue their holiday gift buying,” Fulgoni said.