US e-commerce sales reached $1.47 billion during Cyber Monday this week making it the busiestonline shopping day in history and the second day this year (in addition to Black Friday) to
surpass $1 billion in sales.According to the digital data measurement company comScore, this year’s Cyber Monday salesincreased by 17% to $1.47 billion compared to last year, even surpassing the $1.04 billion inonline sales generated during Black Friday last week. Black Friday is traditionally the biggestshopping day of the year as retailers launch Christmas sales after the Thanksgiving Day holiday.During this year’s Thanksgiving Day on 22 November, US online shoppers spent $633 million, a strong32% increase compared to 2011.
During the first 26 days of the November-December 2012 holiday season, US e-commerce retailsales rose 16% to $16.4 billion. comScore predicted earlier that the country’s revenues generatedfrom online shopping will grow by 17% to $43.4 billion during the overall November-December holidayseason this year compared to 15% growth in the same two-month period last year. This would put itfar ahead of the expected 4.1% increase in overall US retail sales this holiday season.
“Despite some news reports suggesting that Cyber Monday might be declining in importance, theday has once again set an online spending record at nearly $1.5 billion,” comScore chairman GianFulgoni said. “However, it is also clear that the holiday promotional period has begun even earlierthis year, with strong online sales occurring on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. Now, we shallsee the extent to which continuing and attractive retailer promotions are able to boost sales forthe remainder of the week.”
Among the five top selling online retail product categories on Cyber Monday, Digital Content& Subscriptions led the way with a 28% year-on-year increase, followed by consumer electronicswith 24% and computer hardware with 22%. Video game consoles and accessories also generated strongsales on that day with 18% growth compared to Cyber Monday 2011 closely followed by jewelry &watches with 17%.
Nearly half of the e-commerce sales (47.1%) during this year’s Cyber Monday was generated fromwork computers, slightly below the 50.2% last year. The remaining share of e-commerce revenues onthat day came from online orders placed at home with 47.2%, a 4% increase compared to last year.International customers based outside the USA and buying from US websites generated another 5.7% ofonline sales.
“The term ‘Cyber Monday’ was coined by Shop.org in 2005 to refer to the significant jump ine-commerce spending that occurred following the Thanksgiving holiday weekend as consumers got backto sitting in front of computer screens at work,” Fulgoni explained. “At the time and for severalyears afterward, Cyber Monday was often misconstrued as the heaviest online spending day of theyear, when in fact it barely cracked the top ten days of the season.”
“However, with the passage of time, the day grew in importance as a result of an increasingnumber of retailers offering very attractive deals on the day and extensive digital media coveragemaking sure that consumers were aware of them. As a result, Cyber Monday has assumed the mantle oftop online spending day for the past two years – a trend we expect to hold once again in 2012,” heconcluded.
