Cyber Monday has arrived, and Adobe is predicting that it will be the largest online shopping day in America’s history. As of 4:30 p.m. ET, $3.38 billion has been spent at online retailers, a 17 percent increase over last year.
“As consumers make their way back to work, they are poised to be hitting the buy button all day, as most big discounts will end by midnight,” Tamara Gaffney, strategic insights engagement group director at Adobe, said in a press release. “A lot more of this will be happening on smartphones as well, where smoother buying experiences through auto-fill capabilities are helping drive the growth we see in mobile.”
Though mobile still lags behind desktop as a driver of revenue for Cyber Monday, it’s growing rapidly. Thirty percent of all online shopping revenue has come from smartphones on Cyber Monday so far, a 41 percent increase over last year.
Conversion rates on smartphones are likewise lagging, but catching up quick. Compared to desktop’s figure of 4.8 percent, smartphones’ 2.5 percent conversion rate may seem paltry, but represents an increase of 12 percent year over year while desktop’s growth was a more modest 5 percent.
The Black Friday weekend has come to a close, which means that a veritable tidal wave of sales statistics is now available for public consumption.
Between Thanksgiving and Black Friday, total retailer revenue increased by 23 percent from 2016, while the total number of purchases increased by 11 percent, according to data by Rakuten Marketing. This growth was driven disproportionately by online sales, which grew 28 percent in revenue and 35 percent in purchase volume year over year.
Rakuten’s information indicates an increase in the “spreading” of Black Friday across the full holiday season. Though online revenue on Friday alone grew by 21 percent this year, purchase volume itself decreased by 3 percent. On average, consumers spent 24 percent more per order over 2016. According to Rakuten, this is indicative of consumers shopping across several days, waiting until Black Friday to purchase the most expensive items.
In the days prior to Thanksgiving weekend, click-through rates on digital ads jumped by 154 percent, while engagement increased by 111 percent as well. This indicates that consumers are researching their shopping lists in advance of peak shopping days, per Rakuten.
Consumer shopping is shifting more toward mobile, Rakuten’s data also found. Forty-six percent of all retail page views during the week of Thanksgiving came from mobile devices, and revenue from phone shopping increased by 43 percent this year.
Despite rampant sales growth during Thanksgiving week, email marketing messages are lagging, according to reports by Forrester Research. While close to 90 percent of businesses claim that personalizing consumer messages is a priority, only 40 percent of message recipients report seeing deals relevant to their interests.
A report from Yes Lifecycle Marketing found that while retailers sent 15 percent more marketing emails last year, open rates likewise fell by 15 percent from 2015. Though specific targeting can drive user engagement, simpler, broader strategies can bring more consumers in without the risk of giving irrelevant information. For example, the same Yes Lifecycle Marketing report found that emails with “Cyber Monday” in the subject line drove 53 percent more engagements than ones with “Black Friday.”
“Our data shows that conventional thinking around email marketing practices is not always on the mark,” said Michael Fisher, president of Yes Lifecycle Marketing.
