Dive Brief:
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Despite ongoing inflation woes, online consumer spending rose 9.6% year over year to $12.4 billion on Cyber Monday, according to an Adobe Analytics report. Between Nov. 1 and Nov. 27, shoppers spent $109.3 billion online, up 7.3% from last year.
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Between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, online sales rose 7.8% from last year to $38 billion. While Thanksgiving weekend saw the greatest year-over-year sales growth at 7.7% to $10.3 billion, Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday generated 5.5% and 7.5% growth from last year to $5.6 billion and $9.8 billion, respectively, according to Adobe.
- From Nov. 1 to Nov. 27, buy now, pay later sales online saw a 17% jump from 2022 to $8.3 billion. Adobe predicts that this month will be the biggest month for installment payment transactions on record.
Dive Insight
This year’s Cyber Monday growth rate accelerated from last year. In 2022, Adobe found that consumers spent $11.3 billion online during the holiday, a 5.8% increase from the year prior. That year, toy sales saw the greatest sales growth in online spending, spiking 684% compared to the typical day in October.
Holiday sales via mobile devices are expected to continue to rise this year. Adobe’s Cyber Week analysis found that smartphones accounted for 51.8% of online sales, up from 49.9% a year ago. On Thanksgiving Day, 59% of online sales occurred via smartphone, Adobe found.
On Cyber Monday, retailers offered the greatest discounts on electronics at up to 31% off, followed by toys (27%), computers (24%), apparel (23%), furniture (21%), televisions (19%) and appliances (18%). Apparel sales spiked 189% compared to the average day last month, surpassing gains in other categories like appliances (166%), toys (140%), furniture (129%), electronics (103%), jewelry (99%) and sporting goods (95%), according to Adobe.
Of the $109.3 billion consumers spent between Nov. 1 and Nov. 27, 60% of those sales were driven by just five categories: electronics ($21.7 billion), apparel ($19.2 billion), furniture ($14.7 billion), groceries ($6.8 billion) and toys ($3.1 billion). Looking ahead to the end of the holiday season, Adobe predicts that shoppers will spend $221.8 billion between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, up 4.8% from 2022.
“The 2023 holiday shopping season began with a lot of uncertainty, as consumers shifted their spending to services, while dealing with rising costs across different facets of their lives,” Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said in a statement. “The record online spending across Cyber Week, however, shows the impact that discounts can have on consumer demand, especially with quality products that drove a lot of impulse shopping.”
