Cyber Monday brings in record haul

Cyber Monday has made history — again.



With shoppers spending $3.45 billion online on Cyber Monday, Nov. 28, a 12.1% jump year-over-year, sales not only surpassed predictions, but made this the largest Cyber Monday shopping event to date, according to Adobe Digital Insights, which aggregated data from 23 billion visits to retail websites.



Mobile spending on Cyber Monday started off strong early in the day, then slowed in the evening hours. However, it still generated $1.07 billion, a 34% YoY increase. Interestingly, this was $130 million less than Black Friday.



Specifically, mobile accounted for 47% of visits to retail web sites (38% through smartphones, and 9% via tablets: 9%) and 31% of sales (22% from smartphones, and 9% through tablets). The slight decrease is indicative that consumers were shopping from their desktops and laptops in the late evening, according to Adobe.



Conversions were well above holiday averages, with smart phones at 2.8%, tablets at 5.1% and desktops at 6.3% (compared to holiday averages of 1.3, 2.9 and 3.2%, respectively). The average order value (AOV) on iOS smartphones ($141) was slightly higher compared to Android smartphones ($128), Adobe said.



The holiday shopping season so far (November 1-28, 2016) has driven a total of $39.97 billion in online revenue, a 7.6% increase YoY. Given the strong performance of online shopping sales over Thanksgiving weekend and Cyber Monday, Adobe affirms its projection that the holiday shopping season will drive $91.6 billion in online sales.



“Cyber Monday was one for the history books this year, bringing in $3.45 billion and making it the biggest online shopping day ever,” said Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst, Adobe Digital Insights.



“Consumers converted carts into purchases at record high levels before the season, and likely the year's lowest price deals ended,” she added. “It’s an incredible milestone, but it’s also incredible that Black Friday inched so close to Cyber Monday this year, generating only $110 million less in online sales. We’ll be watching this closely next year as Black Friday could be the one to top the records.”



The top-selling electronics on Cyber Monday were the Sony PlayStation 4, Microsoft Xbox, Samsung 4K TVs, Apple iPhone and Amazon Fire. Lego sets, Nerf, Shopkins, Barbie and Pie Face Game were the top-selling toys. Shoppers found their kids’ most coveted Christmas wishes via search ads (38.5% of sales) and direct sales (25.3% of sales) —both of which drove the majority of sales on Cyber Monday. Shopper Helper sites like CNET and RetailMeNot drove 16% of sales and email drove 18.1% of sales, Adobe said.



As expected, many shoppers were attracted by retailers’ sales. The highest price drops were seen for televisions (which had an average discount of 21.4%), tablets (21.1%), toys (14.6 %), pet care (11.8 %) and computers (11.1%). Also, from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, the percent of purchased products that featured the same price across multiple retailers increased to 32% this year from 26% in 2015. This illustrates that online retailers are matching each other's prices, and consumers are taking advantage of it, the firm said.