Black Friday Online Revenue Surpasses $3B, With Mobile Contributing $1.2B

Consumers spent $3.34 billion online on Black Friday, up 21.6% year-over-year (YoY), while Thanksgiving accounted for the remaining $1.93 billion for the two days, up 11.5% compared with 2015.

The biggest surprise, however, came from mobile. The devices drove $1.2 billion in revenue -- up 33% YoY, according to Adobe Digital Insights (ADI), which released 2016 online shopping data for Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day during the holiday weekend.

Most consumers spent Thanksgiving Day without their devices. The average online (AOV) order on Thanksgiving Day came in relatively flat at $160, compared with $162 in 2015.

Mobile on Thanksgiving Day accounted for 57% of visits and 40% of sales -- about $771 million, per ADI. Smartphones drove twice as many sales as tablets on Thanksgiving Day online, at 27% and 13%, respectively.

Some $5.27 billion was spent online by the end of Black Friday, up 17.7% YoY, per ADI. The numbers are based on the findings on aggregated and anonymous data from 22.6 billion visits to retail Web sites. Adobe measures 80% of all online transactions from the top 100 U.S. retailers.

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Conversions improved over holiday averages during the two days, with smartphones at 2.4%, tablets at 4.6% and desktops at 5.5% compared with holiday averages of 1.3%, 2.9%, and 3.2%, respectively, per the report.

 The average order value (AOV) on iOS smartphones came in at $142), higher than transactions on smartphones running the Android operating systems at $130.

Traffic coming from search ads remained high throughout the two days at 38.3%, but fell by 4.3% from holiday averages, while direct traffic contributed 25.3%, yet also fell by 9.6%. Search and direct traffic remained the largest contributors to overall sales. 

Retailers also saw an uptick in sales directed through sites such as RetailMeNot and CNET, which contributed 16.5% to sales. Email contributed 17.8%; display, 1.2%; and social, 0.9%.

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