Black Friday is giving Cyber Monday a run for its money.
This year, the day after Thanksgiving set records with an estimated $3.34 billion spent online, which is 21.6 percent more than last year.
Cyber Monday is expected to slightly surpass that, with a projected $3.36 billion in online sales, which would become the largest online sales day in history, according to data from Adobe.
Shoppers are increasingly turning to their phones for what has traditionally been one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Adobe reports that Friday was the first day in retail history to drive more than $1 billion in mobile revenue, which is 25 percent more than last year. Amazon reported that Black Friday was one of the busiest mobile shopping days on Amazon in the U.S., with more mobile app orders than on either Cyber Monday or Black Friday last year.
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PayPal said purchases made on mobile devices accounted for a third of all total payment volume on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
And omnichannel personalization firm Monetate reported that the average order values on mobile devices on Black Friday increased 22 percent, with mobile conversion rates up 38 percent on Black Friday and cart abandonment rates falling 7 percent. Total e-commerce average order value, according to Monetate, was $171.55. And although this is up overall, the firm found conversion rates on Black Friday were down 34 percent.
Adobe said mobile shopping drove 56 percent of visits to retail web sites on Black Friday and accounted for 40 percent of sales, with an average order value of $142 on iPhones and an AOV of $130 on Android devices. EBay reported that the gross merchandise bought on mobile compared to desktop purchases was up 15 percent compared to last year, with hot items including watches — an Apple Watch sold every 13 seconds — and Fitbits.
“The negative impact on online shopping we saw following the election has not been fully made up, but consumers are back online and shopping,” said Tamara Gaffney, who principal analyst and director of Adobe Digital Insights. She added that conversion rates were up nearly a full percent across all devices in the evening hours on Black Friday. “Black Friday may have just dethroned Cyber Monday’s position as largest online shopping day of the year.”
It’s estimated that 122 million Americans plan to shop online on Cyber Monday, with 28 million of them planning to shop on a mobile device. This is about the same amount as last year, according to the National Retail Federation’s Cyber Monday Expectations Survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics. According to NRF president and chief executive officer Matthew Shay, consumers who shopped during the weekend reserved a portion of their budgets for Cyber Monday, in anticipation of digital deals.
Lucinda Duncalfe, who is ceo of Monetate, said the shift to online holiday shopping benefits retailers as much as consumers.
“Retailers now have the ability to use deep data to enrich and personalize the customer experience, which in turn leads to greater sales and increased loyalty,” she said. “Gone are the days of rushing from the Thanksgiving dinner table into crowded stores in order to stock up on gifts. Clearly, e-commerce has not only arrived but is now the channel of choice for holiday buyers.”