• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, December 2, 2019

Happy Cyber Monday. Brace yourself for some new record ecommerce numbers.

By 9 p.m. Friday, Black Friday online sales had hit $5. billion, a 22.3% increase over the same day in the prior year, according to an analysis by Adobe.

And Small Business Saturday sales tracked at $3.68 billion, an 18% YOY hike, Adobe says in a follow-up analysis released at 9 a.m. on Sunday.   

Super Sunday sales already totaled $220 million, a 21.3% growth YoY), and were on track to surpass $4 billion for the first time, Adobe adds in its Sunday morning report.  

“With a projected $7.6 billion generated over Small Business Saturday & Super Sunday, consumers are taking advantage of post-Black Friday deals and are accelerating spend in the run-up to Cyber Monday,” states Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe. 

Throughout November, online sales totaled 68.2 billion -- a comparable increase of 16.5%, Adobe reports.

In addition, total Black Friday weekend sales will hit $29 billion -- 20% of total season revenue -- showing that shoppers are picking the big days for the best discounts. Last year, the weekend generated 19% in sales.

Paid-search ads pulled in 24.3% of all Saturday spending versus 18% for social networks and 9.1% for email. The latter two channels are growing the most rapidly.

The percentages were similar on Black Friday — 24% for paid search, 20% for social media and 9.4% for email. 

Smartphones have driven 41.2% of all ecommerce revenue, a YoY increase of 22.2%. In contrast, the season-to-date percentage is 35.9%. 

In a separate analysis, SAP reports that most Black Friday orders were placed in the hour starting at 1:00 PM EST. That period also saw the highest conversion rates.  

Moreover, there was an 83% increase in the total number of orders YoY.

Meanwhile, Edison Trends lists the retail winners and losers in online growth: 

1. Nordstrom — 60%
2. Walmart — 53%
3. Amazon — 49%
4. Etsy — 21%
5. Kohl’s — 11%
6. Best Buy — 7%
7. Macy’s — 2%
8. Target — minus12%
9. J.C. Penney — minus 14% 
10. Ebay — minus 17%

It’s not known what impact this is having on shopping malls and downtown city stores, or whether the weather -- with the onset of a so-called winter cyclone bomb -- was also contributing to the online boom. 

However, there was a 46.6% hike YoY in BOPIS (buy online, pick up in store) shopping, Adobe says. The increase for the year-to-date is 41%.

As for Cyber Monday, Adobe forecasts $9.4 billion in online sales, an 18.9% increase YoY — and a new record.

Adobe’s analysis is based on 1 trillion visits to retail sites and 55M SKUs, reflecting 80 of the top 100 U.S. retailers, it says.

UPDATE: Online retailers had already racked up $473 million in sales by 9 a.m. Monday, Adobe reports. Adobe expects that $2.8 billion will be spent online during the peak hours of 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. Eastern, putting the day on track to reach the forecast of $9.4 billion for the day. In addition, $11 million will be spent per minute online during the hour of 11 p.m. to midnight.

UPDATE: As of Tuesday morning, Adobe reports that Cyber Monday sales totaled $9.4 billion, a boost o 19.7% over the prior year, making it the biggest online shopping day of all time. Mobile purchases accounted for $3.1 billion of all online sales during the day.