comScore: Cyber Monday spending up, more people shopping at work

RESTON, Va. According to research firm comScore, spending on Cyber Monday reached $1.028 billion in online spending, up 16% versus last year, representing the heaviest online spending day in history and the first to surpass the billion-dollar threshold.

“Cyber Monday was a historic day for e-commerce as we saw daily spending surpass $1 billion for the first time,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “The online holiday shopping season has clearly gotten off to a very strong start, which is welcome news. At the same time, it’s important to note that some of the early strength in consumer spending is almost certainly the result of retailers’ heavier-than-normal promotional and discounting activity at this early point in the season. So, while we anticipate that there will be more billion-dollar spending days ahead as we get deeper into the season, only time will tell if overall consumer online spending remains at the elevated levels we’ve seen thus far.”

Cyber Monday's sales growth was driven primarily by an increase in average spending per buyer (up 12%) while the number of buyers on Cyber Monday grew by a lower 4% to 9 million, comScore reported. The average spending per transaction grew 10% to $60.05, while the total number of transactions increased 6 percent to 17.1 million.

Nearly half of dollars spent online at U.S. websites originated from work computers (48.9%), representing a decline of 3.8 percentage points from last year, indicating that more people are shopping during business hours. Buying from home comprised the majority of the remaining share (45.4%) while buying at U.S. websites from international locations accounted for 5.8% of sales.