United States retailers were bracing for this and knew this could be one of their biggest online days of the calendar year. When the numbers were calculated at the end of the day, E-commerce sales had reached an all-time high for United States history for online spending. With Black Friday shopping sales at an all-time high, it was interesting to watch how this played out for Cyber Monday. For the US economy, it was a much needed boost and the sales did not disappoint.
Cyber Monday reached $1.465 billion in online spending, up 17 percent from a year ago. This represented the largest online spending day in history and the second day, within just a few days, Black Friday, to reach over $1 billion in sales.
“Despite some news reports suggesting that Cyber Monday might be declining in importance, the day has once again set an online spending record at nearly $1.5 billion,” said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. “However, it is also clear that the holiday promotional period has begun even earlier this year, with strong online sales occurring on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. Now, we shall see the extent to which continuing and attractive retailer promotions are able to boost sales for the remainder of the week.”
Some of the biggest percentage increases from 2011 to 2012 included consumer electronics up 24%, computer hardware 22%, video games, consoles, accessories up 18%, and jewelry and watches increased up to 17%.
Another interesting point was this Cyber Monday was the first time that more shopping had been accomplished on home and school computers (47.2%) than there was for shopping done while at work (47.1%). In 2011, the workplace computers had about a 50% to 43% advantage.
Jay Henderson, the Strategy Director of IBM Smarter Commerce, shared this, “Cyber Monday was not only the pinnacle of the Thanksgiving shopping weekend but when the cash register closed it officially became the biggest online shopping day ever. Retailers that adopted a smarter marketing approach to commerce were able to adjust to the shifting shopping habits of their customers, whether in-store, online or via their mobile device of choice, and fully benefit from this day and the entire holiday weekend.”
Cyber Monday also produced booming increasing results in both mobile and through the use of tablet purchases. The convenience of these tools seemed like they would be a booming success and increase but the proof came through in the past couple of days.
“Mobile commerce as a whole has clearly gone beyond what it’s traditionally been, which is something primarily for the research phase,” Clark Fredricksen, vice president at researcher EMarketer Inc., said in an interview. “Tablets are the key driver in terms of the sales element. They’ve extended the length of the shopping day.”
More than 18% of shoppers used mobile devices when shopping on retail websites, an increase of over 70%. Mobile sales more than doubled from 2012 than were in 2011.
ComScore continues to predict that online sales will increase this holiday season over last year’s sales, which is great news to online retailers and E-commerce site owners.