By Barry Eitel
SAN FRANCISCO (AA) – Cyber Monday, the online shopping day the Monday following Thanksgiving, was the most lucrative single day for online retailers in United States history, analysts said Tuesday.
Shoppers spent $3.45 billion on gadgets, televisions, toys and other items, smashing analyst expectations as well as all other previous one-day online shopping sales records. Online retailers did significantly better than on Black Friday, the massive shopping day that follows Thanksgiving. Compared to Cyber Monday in 2015, retailers saw a 12.1 percent increase in sales this year.
The data was compiled by Adobe Digital Insights, a research firm for Adobe, the company behind the cloud computing sales platform that powers approximately 75 percent of all online transactions for the top 500 retailers in the U.S.
The report shows that the recent muddling of sales holidays through the week of Thanksgiving, and, in some cases, the entire month of November, has not dented the power of single-day shopping “holidays”.
“Cyber Monday is on track to be the biggest online shopping day ever, surpassing our forecast by almost $27 million, or 0.8 percent,” Tamara Gaffney, a principal analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said in a statement. “This indicates that consumers still had more appetite for online shopping despite the incredible volume of online sales on Black Friday. Prices are expected to start climbing after today as retailers shift attention to extend the season late into December with quick shipping deals and the option to click and collect in store.”
The report also reveals a peek into how digital devices are changing the nature of shopping. Shoppers bought $1.19 billion worth of items via a mobile device like smartphones or tablet computers. The best-selling electronics on Cyber Monday were Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Xbox gaming consoles, followed by Samsung 4K televisions. Sets of Lego toy bricks were the bestselling toys.
