A Record Breaking Holiday Weekend for Ecommerce
US ecommerce revenue was up 20% over last year’s holiday season, as Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday brought in more sales than any 5 day period in history.
Thanksgiving Day
Thanksgiving Day online sales were up 20% over last year.
As we all know, ecommerce is growing exponentially each day. Customers have become more mobile and are now more than ever enjoying the benefits of B. Traditionally, Black Friday (the day after Christmas) has always been the biggest shopping holiday of the year. However, this year, online retailers got a head start on the brick and mortar stores. While many stores were closed on Thanksgiving, ecommerce retailers pushed out offers and deals for customers online. This resulted in a 21% increase in online sales up from last year on Thanksgiving Day (ComScore). In addition, there was a strong increase in mobile usage on Thanksgiving with a quarter (25.8%) of the day’s sales on mobile devices (IBM).
Tablets drove more online sales and higher order values than mobile on Thanksgiving.
Interestingly, IBM’s data also shows that tablets are driving more conversions than mobile devices. While the phones are driving the online traffic, the larger screened tablets are the ones, which are driving valuable orders. The average order value on tablets for Thanksgiving was $125 versus $114 on smartphones. Tablets drove approximately 13$ of all the online sales on Thanksgiving, which was 1.5 times more than smartphones. Overall, Thanksgiving reached $766 million in online spending.
Pinterest brought in more sales this year on Thanksgiving than Facebook did.
Pinterest brought in an average referral traffic value of $110.38 per order, whereas Facebook brought in $108.19 per order, according to IBM Data.
Black Friday
Black Friday sales brought in $1.198 billion in desktop online sales.
ComScore just released the totals for Black Friday 2013, the heaviest online spending day to date. There were approximately $1.198 billion in desktop online sales on Black Friday, making it the season’s first billion-dollar day. 16% more people shopped online this Black Friday than last year, which accounted for the 26% rise in sales as compared to Black Friday 2012.
Amazon.com was the most visited online retail site on Black Friday.
ComScore reported that 66.1 million Americans visited ecommerce sites on Black Friday using a desktop computer. Mobile traffic grew to 39.7% of all online traffic on Black Friday, so that number is not even including smartphones or tablets. After Amazon.com, the ecommerce sites most visited were eBay, Walmart, Best Buy, and Target.
Apparel & Accessories accounted for 28% of online spending this year.
According to ComScore, there was a significant surge in the Apparel & Accessories category this year, as these products accounted for 28% of online spending to date this holiday season. Following this category were Computer Hardware (19%), Consumer Electronics (7%), Consumer Packaged Goods (5%) and Shipping Services (5%).
There was a 99.24% increase in global mobile shoppers on Black Friday this year.
PayPal reported a 123.9% increase in global mobile TPV and a 99.24% increase in global mobile shoppers, as compared to Black Friday last year.
Cyber Monday
Cyber Monday was the biggest online shopping day in history with a 20.6% increase in online sales.
The total sales for Cyber Monday reached $2.29 billion, the highest online shopping day so far in history, according to Adobe Digital Index. Overall Cyber Monday sales were up 20.6% over last year, according to IBM Data.
Cyber Monday mobile sales accounted for 58% more sales than last year.
Mobile traffic accounted for 31.7% of all online traffic, which was a significant (55.4%) jump from last year. Mobile sales reached 17% of all online sales on Cyber Monday. 19.7% of all online traffic was driven by smartphones, whereas tablets accounted for only 11.5% on Cyber Monday. However, tablets drove 11.7% of all online sales, as compared to smartphones’ 5.5%. In addition, tablet users had higher average order value ($126.30 per order) than smartphone users ($106.49 per order), according to IBM Data. 1 in 3 purchases made on Cyber Monday was on a mobile device (either tablet or smartphone).
Facebook and Pinterest competed for the higher average order value from referrals on Cyber Monday. Facebook averaged $97.81 per order versus Pinterest’s $92.40 per order. However, Facebook referrals converted sales at a 38% higher rate than Pinterest (IBM Data). However, only 1% of online sales came from social media referrals on Cyber Monday.
Cyber Monday online sales were 31.5% higher than Black Friday sales this year.
Although online sales were higher on Cyber Monday, Black Friday brought in a higher average order value (5%) than Cyber Monday. The average order value on Black Friday was $135.27 as compared to Cyber Monday’s $128.77 per order (IBM Data).
Shopping Cart Conversion Rates were 12.6% higher than Black Friday.
Shoppers purchased items in their cart at a 12.6% higher rate on Cyber Monday as compared to Black Friday.
The 2013 Holiday Season
Holiday Sales are Expected to Reach $78.7 Billion This Year.
On a broader scale, Forrester Research estimates that US online holiday sales will reach $78.7 billion this year, which would be 15% higher than 2012. They also are predicting that there will be 167 million online shoppers, spending an average of $472 this holiday season.
“Strong economic growth and low unemployment rates project a healthy playing field for online holiday sales and outweigh any lingering dampening effect of the government shutdown,” writes Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru.
Thanksgiving Day 2013 through Cyber Monday 2013 was the highest 5 day period of online shopping in history. Expect high sales for the rest of this year, as we finish this holiday season strong.
Information derived from TechCrunch
