Now that shoppers are online all the time anyway, the 10-year-old shopping holiday has lost some of its luster as online sales on Thanksgiving and Black Friday pick up.
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All this online activity doesn’t mean that consumers will stop shopping in stores on the holiday weekend – retail sales are still by far the biggest piece of the pie. As for Cornell himself, he was around to greet holiday shoppers at the Jersey City Target outlet in New Jersey during Thanksgiving.
Mobile devices played an important role in shaping a historic Cyber Monday this year, according to data released by Adobe Digital Index, accounting for 28 percent of purchases made during yesterday’s event.
IBM reported that mobile traffic almost matched that of people checking out online sales from their desktops. Adobe reports online shoppers received the dreaded “this item is no longer in stock” message for 13 out of every 100 items. While Black Friday is nowhere close to being dislodged as the gold-standard day of consumption in the USA – reaching $10 billion in sales this year – the participation rate in Cyber Monday, especially among millennials, is driving the steady growth for the online shopping spree. Over the same weekend in 2014, online sales grew 17 percent and were up 8.5 percent on Monday that year. A record $2.98 billion (12 percent more than in 2014) will be spent online by the end of the day, marking the largest online sales day in history.
The world largest retailer Walmart will be kicking off its 2015 Cyber Monday sales a day early, which will now be on Sunday, November 29th, as the retail corporation unveiled its plan to start the online shopping madness a day earlier.
There was a two-way tie in brands associated with Cyber Monday.
The report concludes with a note that Cyber Monday beat Black Friday in terms of social media sentiment with 56 percent of people posting positive things versus 40 percent for Black Friday, although given the annual orgy, riots and even injuries resulting from the Friday those numbers are not exactly surprising.
One shopper said she still prefers to shop at stores.
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Minneapolis-based Target was offering a 15 percent discount. By noon, the volume on the site was already twice as high as its busiest day before Cyber Monday, said Target spokeswoman Jamie Bastian. U.S. retailers heaved a sigh of relief after having missed sales expectations on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
