In 2024, online retailers and customers alike waited it out through the Cyber 5, which includes Thanksgiving and the four days that follow. Shoppers wanted deals, which they had been waiting for throughout the year in some cases. Meanwhile, retailers held back with their deepest discounts until Cyber Monday arrived.

During each of the five days, shoppers set new spending records. While some outcomes were predictable, such as online spending reaching its peak on Cyber Monday, other developments showed where consumer habits may be heading — and what has changed since the Cyber 5 in 2023.

Ultimately, the Cyber 5 revealed that consumers still wanted to buy online, even in a year that was clouded by economic uncertainty and inflation. This year, Digital Commerce 360’s recap of the Cyber 5 features breakdowns of the new highs reached in 2024, as well as context about the shifts and preferences that accompanied those records.

To understand the Cyber 5’s significance in 2024, we recommend starting with these key highlights:

1. U.S. consumers spent a record $41.1 billion online during the Cyber 5

Online sales were up 8.2% year over year, according to analysis from Adobe Analytics. That was good enough for an all-time record across all five days, individually and combined. Notably, this level of growth was higher than the 7.8% year-over-year growth seen for Cyber 5 online sales in 2023.

2. Thanksgiving and Black Friday online sales were up the most among Cyber 5 days

Among all the days in the Cyber 5 this year, Black Friday sales were up the most — 10.2% year over year — to hit $10.8 billion. Thanksgiving was right behind — up 8.9% year over year — to reach $6.1 billion as the first wave of shoppers hit sites and apps while the leftovers on their tables were still warm.

3. Black Friday grew its share of Cyber 5 sales

While other days lost a share of Cyber 5 sales that they held in 2023, Black Friday managed to claim a slightly larger piece of the pie. The day’s online sales accounted for 26.3% of the Cyber 5 pie, up from 26.0% the year before.

4. Cyber Monday was the most successful day ever for U.S. ecommerce

Despite Black Friday’s good fortune, Cyber Monday still lived up to its name, bringing in $13.3 billion for online merchants. That was a new record for the day, and high enough to make Dec. 2, 2024, the most successful day in history for U.S. ecommerce sales.

5. The total number of online shoppers during the Cyber 5 was down

2024 may have been a record-breaking year for online spending, and the volume of consumers shopping in physical stores was up. However, 197 million people shopping online during the Cyber 5 in 2024 was down from the 200.4 million who did so in 2023, based on data tracked by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics.

6. Only 1 in 10 of top online retailers abstained from Cyber Monday promotions

Most online merchants know they need to do something for Cyber Monday, even if their individual strategies vary. Digital Commerce 360 surveyed a selection of retailers from the Top 1000 Database, which ranks merchants in North America by web sales. The analysis revealed that the vast majority of online retailers ran some form of promotion on Cyber Monday, with only 1 in 10 treating the day as business as usual.

7. Some of the largest online retailers lost their share of Cyber 5 web traffic

You can’t talk about online retail without mentioning Amazon.com, and unsurprisingly the ecommerce giant dominated once again in 2024 when it came to web traffic. Amazon led its competitors with 120.9 million website visits on Black Friday, according to Similarweb. Moreover, Digital Commerce 360 analysis of Similarweb data showed that while Walmart, Target, Costco and Best Buy all lost share of traffic year over year during the Cyber 5, Amazon managed to increase its share by 0.1 percentage point.

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