Online shopping is a growing phenomenon. Black Friday last week boasted record-breaking sales of $3.34 billion, which was the most revenue ever generated online on a single day. But then… just three days later, Cyber Monday happened and generated $3.45 billion in online sales — making it what Fortune calls the biggest day in the history of U.S. ecommerce.
According to Adobe, Cyber Monday generated less mobile revenue than Black Friday at $1.9 billion, but still experienced a YoY increase.
Why did Black Friday beat Cyber Monday in mobile sales?
There is an increasing connectivity between in-store shoppers and researching products on the go. The trends predicted this holiday season include an increase in mobile commerce and using mobile devices while shopping.
Retail touch points reports that 90 percent of shoppers use their smartphones while in a store. They can be using it to compare deals, research a product, read customer reviews, or consume ads. This may prompt shoppers to buy products while on their phone and mobile while physically being in the store and matching a physical product in their hand with the best deals online.
Adobe’s survey also found that “30 percent of Thanksgiving Day shoppers will use a smartphone because they are on-the-go; 24 percent because they can shop online without it being noticed by family/friends.”
So what drove the sales?
Search ads brought in 35.5 percent of sales and direct sales accumulated 23.8 percent of sales for Cyber Monday. According to Adweek, who received their data from AdRoll, “digital advertisers spent 17.9 percent more on Black Friday and 13.8 percent more on Thanksgiving compared to last year.”
Companies also saw a surge in sales with the help of sites like RetailMeNot and CNET and email campaigns. eBay was the top mentioned retailer on social, followed by Amazon and Macy’s.
Through November, Origami Logic tracked 125 brands across social media to measure engagement and found that Lowe’s, Old Navy, Nordstrom, and Amazon were in the top brands by conversation and total engagement. Facebook and Instagram received 94.95 percent of the engagement.
The hottest items were tech products.
The most popular products of the season were the Playstation 4, Pokémon Sun & Moon, Samsung 4k TV, and iPad Air 2. The products most likely to run out of stock were Beats by Dr. Dre Headphones, Garmin Vivofit Jr., Nintendo 2DS, and the Dell Inspiron 15 3000 Series.
More season totals
According to Adobe’s final report, the total online sales grew 7.6 percent from last year to $39.97 billion. Twenty seven out of the 28 days Adobe measured in November brought in over $1 billion in revenue online. The desktop share of visits was 53 percent and desktop share of sales was 69 percent, though mobile is gaining with the share of visits being at 44 percent and share of sales reaching 31 percent. The iOS conversion rate, 3.1 percent, was higher than Android, 2.4 percent, yet the tablet conversion remained higher at 5.1 percent.
Final thoughts
Retailers have a huge opportunity to capitalize on the two biggest ecommerce days of the years by investing in mobile campaigns. The shopper’s journey has changed and companies must keep up. To learn more about holiday ecommerce, consumer journeys, and influencers, check out out trends.