Cyber Monday Reaches Predicted $9.4B In Online Purchases, Some Marketers Say Black Friday Outperformed

Consumers spent $9.4 billion on Cyber Monday, up 19.7% year-over-year (YoY) -- making it the biggest online shopping day of all time in the U.S. and beating last year’s $7.9 billion record, Adobe Analytics confirmed on Tuesday.

Mobile transactions on smartphones reached $3.1 billion on Cyber Monday -- the highest YoY dollar growth ever for the device. From Nov. 1 through Dec. 2, 2019, consumers spend a record 81.5 billion -- up 14% YoY.

Some marketers saw Black Friday outperform Cyber Monday for the first time. “My clients saw 15% to 20% higher sales on Black Friday compared with Cyber Monday, and this was consistent across all clients,” said Tim Daly, CEO at digital agency Vincodo. “We also saw weekend sales higher than normal. Everything seems to have shifted toward Black Friday even more this year.”

Daly attributes the switch to a change in consumer behavior and shopping patterns. Most advertisers have the same deals online, beginning with Thanksgiving Day, he said, which drove sales up significantly.

“For my clients, from Thanksgiving Day through Sunday sales were explosive,” he said. “Cyber Monday was a letdown.”

Still, Adobe notes that Cyber Monday outpaced sales last year, especially in the later hours. On Cyber Monday, during the hours between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. Eastern, consumers spent $2.9 billion -- up 24% YoY -- reaching a purchasing rate of $12 million per minute between 11 p.m. and 12 a.m. Eastern.

Consumers bought more and higher-ticket items during Cyber Monday. On average, consumers’ shopping carts were 6% bigger at checkout on Cyber Monday than they were last year.

Most of the revenue between Nov. 1 and Dec. 2, 2019 came from desktops at $48.4 billion or 60.4%. Smartphones contributed $29 billion or 34.5%. Tablets contributed only $4.1 billion, or 5.1%.

Some 59% of purchases were made from desktops, generating 37% of traffic. Smartphones contributed 36% to purchases, generating 58% of traffic. Tablets contributed 5% to purchases, generating 5% of traffic.

Adobe’s analysis came from more than 1 trillion visits to retail sites and 55 million products, measuring transactions from 80 of the top 100 U.S. online retailers.

Next story loading loading..