• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, November 29, 2021

Adobe expects consumers to spend between $10.4 billion and $11.1 billion today. This would make it the biggest online shopping day of the year, but it would still be no more than flat with Cyber Monday in 2020, when shoppers spent $10.8 billion. 

A late report from Adobe showed that consumers spent $7.1 billion on Cyber Monday up to 9 p.m. ET--the equivalent of $6.5 million per minute. However, those on the west coast have not finished shopping yet, and are expected to spend at least $2.5 billion in the "golden hours between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. Pacific time. 

That said, the growth rate has been flat compared with the $10.8 billion spent last year. 

Moreover, spending fell on Black Friday to $8.9 billion -- down from $9 billion in 2020, Adobe says. And Thanksgiving Day spending hit $5.1 billion, flat with 2020.

This reflects a shift in consumer shopping patterns. Adobe maintains its prediction that online sales will hit a record $207 billion -- a 10% increase YoY, in the period from November 1 to December 31.

“Online sales on big shopping days like Thanksgiving and Black Friday are decreasing for the first time in history, and it is beginning to smooth out the shape of the overall season,” states Taylor Schreiner, director, Adobe Digital Insights. “With 21 days in November driving over $3 billion in spend, what we know as Cyber Week is starting to look more like Cyber Month.”

Salesforce predicts a similar flatness for today, although the number is slightly different. U.S. shoppers will spend $11 billion -- flat YoY. On Black Friday, there was an increase of 5% in spending to $13.4 billion.  

“After a strong start to the holiday season, momentum continued with moderate growth throughout Cyber Week,” says Rob Garf, vice president and general manager of retail at Salesforce. “With the smoothing out of demand throughout the entire season, peak days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday have less of an impact than previous years. It’s been less about Cyber Week and more about Cyber November.” 

Garf says: "It’s always a retailer’s dream to pull demand early in the fall, and with supply-chain bottlenecks and fears of inflation, consumers did shop early and often.”

Mastercard SpendingPulse reports +4/9% YoY sales for the weekend running Friday, November 26 through Sunday, November 28. 

Meanwhile, Adobe expects YoY discounts to be weaker on Monday, one symptom of the supply-chain crunch. Salesforce says the average selling price over Cyber Week is up 13% in the U.S. and 6% globally.  

Also, Adobe reports that out-of-stock messages were up 16% versus the prior weekend. 

Brands lost between 62% and 93% of shoppers who were faced with out-of-stock items, Bluecore reports. But 38% purchased another item from the same brand.   

Bluecore adds that consumer electronics brands converted only 7% of shoppers that encountered out-of-stock items. 

Holiday inventory is low, with product catalogs shrinking by 6% in the U.S. during Cyber Weekend compared, Salesforce says. 

Adobe's analysis covers over 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs, and 18 product categories.

Salesforce analyzed global shopping data from more than 1 billion consumers on Commerce Cloud and Marketing Cloud, covering 24 of the top 30 U.S. online retailers.

Note: This story was amended to reflect numbers coming in after 9 p.m. Monday night.