Adobe today released its 2017 online shopping data for Cyber Monday and the holiday weekend overall. Cyber Monday is projected to hit a new record as the largest online sales day in history with $6.59 billion by the end of the day. This marks a 16.8 percent year-over-year (YoY) increase as of 10:00 p.m. ET. In comparison, Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day brought in $5.03 billion and $2.87 billion in revenue respectively. Top sellers on Cyber Monday included the Nintendo Switch, PJ Masks and Hatchimals & Colleggtibles figurines, Apple AirPods, streaming devices like Google Chromecast and Roku, and Super Mario Odyssey, the video game. The holiday shopping season so far (November 1 to 27) drove a total of $50 billion in online revenue, a 16.8 percent increase. Adobe predicts this will be the first-ever holiday season to break $100 billion in online sales.
Overall web traffic to retail sites increased by 11.9 percent on Cyber Monday, with the season average at 5.7 percent. Mobile set a new record representing 47.4 percent of visits (39.9 percent smartphones, 7.6 percent tablets) and 33.1 percent of revenue (24.1 percent smartphones, 9.0 percent tablets). Smartphone traffic specifically grew 22.2 percent YoY while revenue coming from smartphones ($1.59 billion) saw 39.2 percent growth YoY, a new all-time high. Mobile transactions are closing at a 12 percent higher rate compared to Cyber Monday 2016. For purchases made on smartphones, Apple iOS led with an average order value (AOV) of $123, in comparison to Google Android at $110.
“Shopping and buying on smartphones is becoming the new norm and can be attributed to continued optimizations in the retail experience on mobile devices and platforms,” said Mickey Mericle, vice president, Marketing and Customer Insights at Adobe. “Consumers are also becoming more savvy and efficient online shoppers. People increasingly know where to find the best deals and what they want to purchase, which results in less price matching behavior typically done on desktops. Millennials were likely another reason for the dramatic growth in mobile, with 75 percent expecting to shop via their smartphone.”
Additional findings include:
Top sellers: Best-selling electronics include Google Chromecast, Apple iPads, Samsung Tablets, Apple AirPods, and Sony Playstation VR. Video games and consoles include Super Mario Odyssey, Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Xbox One X. Toys include PJ Masks and Hatchimals & Colleggtibles, Funko Pop and L.O.L. Surprise dolls, as well as Ride On Cars.
Biggest discounts: Largest price drops heading into Cyber Monday were for toys with an average discount of 18.8 percent, followed by TVs at 21.1 percent and computers at 14.7 percent. Black Friday saw the largest discounts for computers (15.9 percent on average), followed by TVs (21.6 percent) and toys (17.3 percent). On Giving Tuesday, pet products as well as furniture and bedding are expected to see the best deals with 22 and 13 percent respectively.
Expected shopping surge in the late hours of Cyber Monday: Three hours in the evening of Cyber Monday (8-11 p.m. in each local market) are expected to bring in more online revenue than the average 24-hour day. Conversion rates will reach their peak during the last hour of Cyber Monday (11 p.m. – midnight) at four times the annual average.
Large and small retailers win: Large retailers (over $100 million in annual revenue) saw higher AOVs and desktop conversion rates. Small retailers (under $10 million in annual revenue) saw 30 percent higher conversion rates on smartphones than large retailers.
Top retail promotion drivers: Search drove the majority of online sales on Cyber Monday at 41.7 percent (paid search at 22.9 percent, organic search at 18.8 percent). Direct traffic and email drove 24.8 percent and 24.9 percent respectively. Paid search saw the strongest growth at 8.3 percent YoY.
Record Thanksgiving week online sales: November 23 through 26 totaled $13.03 billion, a 14.4 percent increase YoY. Thanksgiving Day spend totaled $2.87 billion (18.3 percent growth YoY) while Black Friday hit $5.03 billion (up 16.9 percent YoY). Thanksgiving weekend (November 25 and 26) saw $5.12 billion in revenue. Online spend surpassed at least $1 billion every day in the lead up to Thanksgiving.
Full holiday season online sales: For the rest of the season, 13 days are projected to exceed $2 billion in online sales bringing the total to 18 $2 billion days this holiday season, over double the number from last year.
Methodology
Adobe leverages Adobe Sensei, Adobe’s artificial intelligence and machine learning framework, to identify retail insights from trillions of data points that flow through Adobe Analytics, part of Adobe Analytics Cloud in Adobe Experience Cloud. Adobe’s retail report, the most comprehensive set of insights and predictions of its kind in the industry, is based on an analysis of one trillion visits to over 4,500 retail sites and 55 million SKUs. $7.50 of every $10 spent by consumers online with the top 500 U.S. retailers go through Adobe Experience Cloud.* Adobe Analytics measures 80 percent of online transactions at the largest 100 U.S. web retailers.