The figures are in: cyber week has reached record consumer shopping levels – a positive sign amidst a softened economy. Several signals indicated a possible drop in discretionary spending this holiday season. But the evidence looks good so far, with lots of shopping days still to come.
This evidence so far comes from a collection of sources that we’ve aggregated, including annual holiday shopping analytics from Adobe and Salesforce. Both show mostly-consistent spending trends, starting with Thanksgiving Day (in the U.S.), Black Friday, and Cyber Monday – collectively cyber week.
Before diving into these figures, it’s worth noting the economic backdrop and forecasted spending. For example, according to eMarketer, the retail sector is spending big to stimulate holiday shopping with 69 percent that planned to increase ad spend this holiday season, specifically on social media.
Will that make a difference in driving shoppers to stores? The full holiday shopping season is still ahead but there’s some evidence and leading indicators from the levels seen from the kickoff that is cyber week. That brings us back to spending trackers from Adobe and Salesforce. Let’s dive in…
By The Numbers.
To stay organized, we’ll delineate this analysis between the major shopping days over the past week, starting with Thanksgiving Day when Cyber Week officially kicked off. Thanksgiving has become a big shopping day, as users look to get a jump on Black Friday deals which are appearing earlier and earlier.
Thanksgiving Day
- This day saw $33.6 billion in online sales globally, which is up 6 percent year over year (Salesforce).
- The U.S. market specifically was up 8 percent to $8.1 billion, while Europe grew 10 percent. (Salesforce)
- U.S. shoppers spent $6.1 billion, up from $5.6 billion last year – 9 percent YoY growth. (Adobe)
- These growth figures are encouraging, given that last year’s spending only grew about one percent from the previous year.
- Retailers blitzed shoppers with deals to stimulate demand, with the average discount in the U.S. at 27 percent.
- Mobile shopping in particular hit an all-time high at 59.5 percent of online sales, totalling $3.6 billion (Adobe).
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Black Friday
- U.S. consumers hit a new spending record of $10.8 billion, up 10.2 percent YoY (Adobe).
- Spending also reached a new high on a global level at $74.4 billion, up 5 percent YoY (Salesforce).
- The peak spending time was between 10 am and 2 pm EST, during which $11.3 million was spent per minute (Adobe).
- Mobile shopping accounted for 55 percent of online sales (Adobe).
- Like the above figures, average discounts were in the 27 percent range.
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Cyber Monday
- U.S. shoppers spent $13.3 billion, up 7.3 percent YoY (Adobe).
- Global spending was $49.7 billion, up 3 percent YoY (Salesforce).
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Full Cyber Week & Holiday Season Projections
– The cumulative total over the five days preceding Cyber Momday was $41.1 billion in the U.S. – up 8.2 percent YoY (Adobe).
– Globally, cumulative cyber-week spending was $314.9 billion, up 6 percent YoY (Salesforce).
– The full holiday season, ending at the end of the year, is projected to reach $240.8 billion in the U.S., up 8.4 percent YoY (Adobe).
Wait & See
Back to the possibilities throughout the remainder of the holiday season, we could see declines. We say that because a softened economy could amplify price sensitivity. If true, that drives cyber-week discounted shopping – as shown in the above figures – but diminishes subsequent spending.
We say that simply because it’s a trend we observed last year. In an economy with similarly dampened discretionary spending, last year likewise saw record cyber-week spending. But that was followed by weaker-than-average spending in the remainder of the holiday season as consumers held back.
We’ll have to wait and see if that bears out this year, as Adobe projects 8.4 percent growth. Meanwhile, aside from the sheer numbers, a few notable trends emerge. For one, digital shopping continues to grow in share of overall shopping. That includes both mobile and desktop, with the latter growing every year.
As for methodology, Adobe works with hundreds of online retailers and bases its calculations on 1 trillion+ visits to retail sites, including 100 million+ SKUs and 18 product categories. Salesforce utilizes its Commerce Cloud and Marketing Cloud to track spending data on about 1.5 billion transactions.
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