Cyber Monday lived up to the hype this year—and then some.
Figures released Tuesday by the Adobe Digital Insights unit of Adobe Inc. show U.S. shoppers spent $3.45 billion online this year, making Cyber Monday the biggest online shopping day in the United States. That’s up 12.1% from $3.07 billion on Cyber Monday 2015, and a bit higher than Adobe’s forecast of $3.36 billion when Cyber Monday began.
While a big number, Monday’s $3.45 billion e-commerce figure beat Black Friday’s $3.34 billion total by just 3.3%.
“That was a bit of a surprise (that Cyber Monday held on to the top day) because the deals for Black Friday started earlier in the year and the deals were pretty strong,” says Michelle Grant, head of retailing research at market research firm Euromonitor International.
U.S. shoppers have spent $39.97 billion online in the month of November through Cyber Monday, up 7.6% year over year, with all but one day this month eclipsing the $1 billion in online sales milestone. Growth significantly accelerated, however, during the five-day stretch from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, with shoppers spending a total of $12.8 billion online during that period, up 15.2% from the same time last year.
Adobe does not break down individual sales for Saturday and Sunday of the Thanksgiving weekend, so here’s a look at how retailers fared on the three benchmark days of that five-day stretch:
- Thanksgiving: $1.93 billion, up 11.5% year over year from $1.7 billion.
- Black Friday: $3.34 billion, up 21.6% year over year from $2.74 billion.
- Cyber Monday: $3.45 billion, up 12.1% year over year from $3.07 billion.
Adobe’s data shows retailers did a better job of preparing their inventory levels for Cyber Monday this year, with an out-of-stock rate of 12%, down 0.5% from last year.
IBM, meanwhile, is reporting a sharper global growth trajectory for Cyber Monday and the five-day period from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday.
IBM says online sales increased 16.7% year over year on Cyber Monday (it does not specify a dollar figure), while global online sales during the Thanksgiving weekend stretch grew 8.8% year over year.
While online sales were up on Cyber Monday, overall web traffic declined, according to the Verizon Retail Index, which reports a 2% year-over-year drop in online retail traffic compared with the same day in 2015.
“The focus on bridging Black Friday to Cyber Monday with strong weekend promotions proved effective before consumers likely began to tune out,” writes Michele Dupré, group vice president of retail, hospitality, and distribution for Verizon Enterprise Solutions. “The key will be to continue driving consumer engagement with creative promotions into the weekend.”
Data from digital marketing firm HookLogic Inc., now a division of ad technology vendor Criteo S.A., shows shoppers spent more per order on average on Thanksgiving than any of the five days of the holiday weekend. Here’s how the order values, by day, break down, according to HookLogic client data:
- Thanksgiving: $160.20
- Black Friday: $142.20
- Saturday: $138.70
- Sunday: $137.70
- Cyber Monday: $139.00
HookLogic attributes the $21 dropoff in average order value from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday to retailers offering deeper discounts on Cyber Monday. HookLogic’s client data also shows that Cyber Monday 2016 drew 15.2% more online shoppers than last year.