Cyber Monday 2015 will be a day for the retail record books, at least until next holiday season. The event marks the first workday after the Thanksgiving weekend and is typically one of the busiest days for shopping online.
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While many shoppers headed to the Web for Black Friday shopping this year – more than in any year previously – Cyber Monday continued the growth trend with more clicks and better deals online. “Cyber Monday is becoming Cyber Week”, said Georgetown University marketing professor Marlene Morris Towns told Bloomberg.
“We recognize the Thanksgiving weekend shopping experience is much different than it used to be as just as many people want that unique, exclusive online deal as they do that in-store promotion”, NRF President Matthew Shay said. Each of those thousands of products still remains mystery until now. In addition, online sales have already hit over eight billion dollars over Thanksgiving weekend – a 17% increase over a year ago.
“This year, we saw Black Friday ads emerge before Halloween, as retailers aimed to get at the shopper’s wallet early”, said Kevin Kearns, ShopperTrak chief revenue officer. Pre-Christmas discount day started in the U.S.to kick start the holiday shopping period.
Besides Cyber Monday’s 12 percent gains, Thanksgiving online sales increased 25 percent this year ($1.7 billion), and Black Friday online sales were up 14 percent ($2.7 billion).
Mobile commerce is estimated to have accounted for 27 per cent of total spend on the day with $838m spent via smartphones and tablets. “This means retailers without a strong online presence, such as Primark, will pool all their deals and resources around Black Friday instead”.
Share of sales driven through display ads increased 57% compared to past year. Most importantly, the success of the holiday season doesn’t hinge on the performance of a single day.
Savvy shopper sites, such as RetailMeNot, was the most common place people found discounts (32 percent), followed by search ads (26.6 percent) and direct sales (21.3 percent).
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“Black Friday has been kind of inconsistent as far as predicting holiday sales”, he says. Mobile spending, or sales via smartphones and tablets, jumped 53 percent to $838 million, making up 27 percent of total online spending.
