• by Ray Schultz , December 17, 2020

Digital sales rose by 45% YoY, totaling $181 billion globally in the post-Cyber Monday period between December 1 and December 14, according to Salesforce.

But U.S. growth was up by only 36% YoY to $39 billion. 

In addition, growth in global online orders hit a peak of 71% on December 5th before slowing down on December 7.  

Curbside pickup dominated, with sales growing by 52% for retail firms in the U.S. that offered the service, versus 36% for firms that did not. 

"Those retailers providing flexible and contactless fulfillment in the U.S. grew 44% higher than those that didn’t during the first two weeks of December,” states Rob Garf, vice president of strategy and insights at Salesforce.

Garf adds, “With shipaggedon upon us, those retailers offering flexible and contactless last-mile options like buy online pickup in-store, curbside pickup and drive-through are winning.”

Discounts fell by 10% -- with the global average now at 18% for the first two weeks of December, down from 28% in November.

Meanwhile, buy now, pay later financing operations grew by 90%, and Apple Pay by 85%. 

These findings are based on the activity over 1 billion global shoppers as powered by Salesforce’s Commerce Cloud.