Seasonal

Armonk, N.Y. -- IBM reported Tuesday that online spending surged 30.3% year-over-year on Cyber Monday, an all-time high.

Mobile shopping rose 70% over the prior year.

As part of IBM’s Smarter Commerce initiative, the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark revealed the following additional Cyber Monday key findings:

New York -- Cyber Monday continues its importance, driving a nearly 22% increase in year-over-year online sales, Chase reported Tuesday as part of its latest Holiday Pulse report. Monday sales beat Sunday, the next highest day, by a margin of 26.7%.

Target is working its way across Canada beginning this week by hosting special events in 20 cities to build interest in the planned opening of 124 stores in 2013.

Washington, D.C. -- A survey released by Shop.org and conducted by BIGinsight found that 129.2 million shoppers say they’ll head to retailers’ websites on Cyber Monday, up from the 122.8 million who shopped last year, and the 106.9 million who shopped on Cyber Monday in 2010.
 
The majority (85%) of retailers will have a special promotion for Cyber Monday, according to a prior survey.

Chicago -- A report released Saturday by ShopperTrak found that Black Friday proved to be a mixed bag for retailers, as retail foot traffic increased over last year, but retail sales decreased slightly.

ShopperTrak estimates that, when compared with Black Friday last year, retail foot traffic rose 3.5% to more than 307.67 million store visits. Retail sales decreased 1.8%, however, with shoppers spending an estimated total of $11.2 billion on Friday.

GOODLETTSVILLE, Tenn. — Capitalizing on its Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales, Dollar General has tackled Cyber Monday with the launch of a new mobile app for iPhone and Android smartphones.

The mobile app will offer shoppers sales ads, store locations, coupons and, of course, exclusive Cyber Monday deals available online. Shoppers will also be able to use Dollar General’s free Quick Response scanner to access upcoming sales and unlock additional savings, as well as connect with the retailer on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Online and mobile fraud prevention needs to be part of every retailer’s brand’s holiday retail strategy. According to Cybersource’s 2011 survey of e-commerce fraud, $3.4 billion in online revenue was lost in 2011 as a result of fraud, and this number is only expected to increase. Although the holidays are just around the corner, there is still time to take action and reduce your exposure to fraudulent mobile channel activities.

Evanston, Ill. -- Many consumers who visit a store but then buy online are not driven there by price alone, but rather by a less-than-satisfactory in-store experience, according to results from the annual holiday shopping report by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.