Mobile dominates on Cyber Monday

U.S. shoppers made Cyber Monday the biggest online shopping day in history with a 20.6% increase in online sales, according to the latest cloud-based analytics findings from IBM. Mobile sales led the way, exceeding 17% of total online sales, an increase of 55.4% year-over-year.



Cyber Monday also capped the highest five-day online sales period on record — from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday — which grew 16.5% over the same period in 2012.



"We continue to see a dramatic movement of the new digitally savvy consumer as Cyber Monday once again proved to be the star of this holiday shopping season," said Jay Henderson, strategy director, IBM Smarter Commerce. "The mobile device has become the shopping companion of choice for consumers, driving record mobile sales."



New York took the top spot for total online retail sales on Cyber Monday. Rounding out the top five were Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta. Mobile traffic grew to 31.7% of all online traffic, increasing by 45% over 2012.

Smartphones drove 19.7% of all online traffic compared to tablets at 11.5%, making it the browsing device of choice. However, tablets drove 11.7% of all online sales, more than double that of smartphones, which accounted for 5.5%. On average, tablet users spent $126.30 per order compared to smartphone users who spent $106.49.



iOS users spent $120.29 per order, compared to $106.70 per order for Android. iOS traffic reached 22.4% of all online traffic, compared to 9.1% for Android. iOS sales reached 14.5% of all online sales, compared to 2.6% for Android.



Retailers sent 77% more push notifications during the five-day holiday shopping period — the alert messages and popup notifications from apps installed on your mobile device — when compared to daily averages in the past two months. Average daily retail app installations also grew by 29% using the same comparison.



Holiday shoppers referred from Facebook spent 6% more per order than shoppers referred from Pinterest. Facebook average order value was $97.81 versus Pinterest average order value which was $92.40. Facebook referrals converted sales at a rate 38% higher than Pinterest.