A strong surge in holiday shopping online during the extended Thanksgiving weekend was followed by a sharp decline in online retail traffic the following weekend.
Traffic to online retail sites on Saturday (Dec. 2) fell 18% when compared to the same weekend a year ago, before rebounding to post a 2% year-over-year gain on Sunday (Dec. 3), according to data from the Verizon Holiday Retail Index.
By comparison, the Saturday and Sunday of the Cyber 5, which runs from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, posted year-over-year traffic gains of 24% and 29% respectively. Verizon bases its findings on traffic to the 25 largest online retailers in the U.S.
“After a successful Cyber Week, a trifecta of warmer weather, holiday events and enticing store promotions likely resulted in strong foot traffic on Saturday,” says Michele Dupre, group vice president of retail, hospitality and distribution at Verizon Enterprise Solutions. “Retailers need to aggressively come out of the gate with creative offers ahead of this weekend.”
Shoppers in the U.S. spent more than $10 billion on their desktop computers during the five-day stretch from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday (Nov. 23-27). Data from comScore Inc. shows that shoppers in the U.S. spent $10.212 billion on desktop devices during that period, up 21.4% from $8.414 billion last year.
Cyber Monday, which is the Monday after Thanksgiving, generated the highest online sales total via desktop and year-over-year growth among the four periods that comScore measured. The web measurement firm broke down the Cyber 5 as follows: Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, Saturday and Sunday combined, and then Cyber Monday. Shoppers in the U.S. spent a record $3.364 billion on their desktop computers on Cyber Monday, up 25.9% from $2.671 billion last year. ComScore says this year marks the first time that desktop spending in the U.S. has eclipsed $3 billion in a single day.
ComScore also reports that 28.9% (40 million) of the 140 million people in the U.S. who shopped online on Cyber Monday did so on both mobile and desktop devices.