“Holiday shopping will never be the same”, says Ken Wisnefeski for the website The Street. According to Adobe, consumers spent $3.07 billion on Cyber Monday. “And I think it shows that brick-and-mortar and e-commerce is still a healthy combination for retailers”. 45% of total traffic on Black Friday, and 36.8% of traffic on Cyber Monday (up 70% from 2014) was accredited to smartphones, which were more popular for shoppers than any other device.
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“Consumers are recognizing the Internet is the place to go for a deal any time, any day”, said Gene Alvarez, managing vice president of research firm Gartner. Retailers must make sure they are equipped to handle the increased fulfillment of online orders this season, whether they are fulfilled in a distribution center or a store. That includes $10.21 billion on Black Friday, a decline of 11.9 percent, the firm said.
Thanks to the booming sales late in the day, revenues for Cyber Monday, the biggest online shopping day of the year, crossed the $3 billion mark for the first time in its 10-year history.
Cyber Monday was a very successful day but it was not without its glitches, even among its winners.
Indeed, RetailNext and Verizon Enterprise Solutions found that muted foot traffic on Black Friday was likely due in part to better foot traffic throughout November in many areas. According to data pulled from Adobe’s ADBE Digital Index data tool, total online sales on Cyber Monday jumped 16% from the a year ago, higher than the software company’s initial prediction of 12% growth. And 33.2 percent came from mobile devices, up from 27 percent previous year.
The retailer will continue offering deals throughout the rest of the season in an effort to keep the customer shopping activity strong, she adds.
In-store mobile continues to play only a supplemental role in holiday retail, signaling a major missed opportunity for retailers to capture sales from shoppers seeking the convenience and freedom of online while in-store.
“A lot of people waiting to see if deals are better on Cyber Monday”.
The name “Cyber Monday” was coined in 2005 by the National Retail Federation’s online arm, called Shop.org, to encourage people to shop online. The name was also a nod to online shopping being done at work where faster connections made it easier to browse.
“I plan on scoping out the deals”, said Diane Boral, 33, from Oxnard, California, who planned to shop online at Wal-Mart, Target and other stores on Monday.
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She was getting orders with as many as four pieces, which is outside the norm, she said. She was looking for deals ranging from 20 percent to 75 percent off on items like a camera, air conditioner, tires and Christmas gifts. “Wal-Mart noted that 50 inch-55 inch 4K HDTVs were among the products that gained the most in popularity year over year and its rival said that it sold “two 48″ Samsung 4K Ultra HD TVs per minute”.
