Dive Brief:
- Online consumer spending on Cyber Monday reached $13.3 billion, rising 7.3% from $12.4 billion last year, according to an Adobe Analytics report. This year’s figure beat Adobe’s projection of $13.2 billion. From Nov. 1 to Dec. 2, online spending rose 9% from a year ago to $131.5 billion.
- Mobile shopping represented 57% of Cyber Monday’s online sales, or $7.6 billion in spending, which was a 13.3% year-over-year increase. That’s up from 2019, when 33% of Cyber Monday sales were on mobile.
- Use of buy now, pay later reached an all-time high on Cyber Monday, representing $991.2 million in spending, a 5.5% rise from last year. About 75% of BNPL transactions were on mobile. Adobe attributed increased use of BNPL to consumers who want more options to manage their holiday spending budget.
Dive Insight:
Toys, appliances, electronics and apparel were among Cyber Monday’s top performing categories, according to Adobe’s data. Toy sales grew 680% compared to an average day in October. Appliances were up 464%, electronics were up 452% and apparel was up 392%.
From Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, consumers spent $41.1 billion online, an 8.2% increase from last year. Online spending during Thanksgiving hit a new high, rising 8.8% year over year to $6.1 billion. Spending online on Black Friday reached $10.8 billion, a 10.2% increase from a year ago.
“While Cyber Monday remained the season’s and year’s biggest online shopping day, year-over-year growth was stronger on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday,” Vivek Pandya, lead analyst, Adobe Digital Insights, said in a statement. “Early discounts were strong enough that many consumers felt comfortable hitting the buy button earlier on during Cyber Week, with Cyber Monday becoming ‘last call’ for shoppers to take advantage of big holiday deals.”
Additionally, discounts this season have also encouraged shoppers to purchase higher-ticket items in electronics, appliances, and sporting goods, further advancing e-commerce growth.
So far during the holiday season, three retail categories have driven more than half of online spending, Adobe said. Electronics was up 10.6% from a year ago to $30.1 billion; apparel rose 9.5% to $24.6 billion; and furniture was up 6.6% year over year to $16.2 billion. Overall, Adobe expects spending from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31 to reach $240.8 billion, an 8.4% year-over-year uptick.
With about three weeks to go before Christmas, two other trends are influencing consumer behavior this season — generative AI and the rise of social influencers. Traffic to retail sites from chat bots spiked by 1,950% on Cyber Monday. “While the base of users remains modest, the uptick shows the value chat bots are playing as a shopping assistant for consumers to find deals or to quickly locate products,” Adobe said.
The company also tracks how much marketing channels drive consumers to shop on U.S. retail sites. Adobe includes social media influencers in its “affiliates and partners” data and within this segment, the share of revenue was 20.3% on Cyber Monday, a 6.8% rise from last year. Adobe said its data showed that influencers are converting shoppers six times more than social media overall.
Finally, net-new demand, rather than higher prices, is driving online consumer spending. Adobe’s data shows that e-commerce prices have fallen for 26 consecutive months, declining 2.9% in October. Adobe doesn’t adjust its figures for inflation, but if online deflation was factored in, it said consumer spending growth would be stronger.
