The U.S. just had a record-breaking Cyber Monday, with sales surging to a new high of $7.9 billion, up more than 19 percent over last year and setting the stage for a strong holiday season, according to Adobe Analytics.
Coming two days after deal-seekers set a record on Black Friday when they spent $6.2 billion shopping online, an almost 24 percent increase from last year, this Cyber Monday and the whole Thanksgiving holiday confirmed consumers' strong interest in online shopping.
"Black Friday is really now a cyber day, too," said Steve Goldberg, president of the Grayson Company, a retail consulting firm.
"When you put Black Friday and Cyber Monday together, it runs through the entire weekend. We saw a continuation of events online" from Friday to Monday and beyond, he said.
"There is just the continued effort of trying to squeeze every possible transaction that they can," said Goldberg.
Amazon saw not only the single best shopping day in the company's history on Monday, but also a record number of consumers during the five days starting on Thanksgiving Day — the "Turkey 5" as they're called — who ordered more than 180 million items.
The booming online retail industry is supported by a proliferation of smartphones and the industry's adaptation to the trend, according to Adobe.
On Cyber Monday, smartphones alone brought online retailers about half of their traffic and 30 percent of their sales, with transactions on mobile devices up 55 percent from last year, according to Adobe.
The popularity of e-commerce comes with a decline in traffic to physical stores: 1.7 percent fewer shoppers visited brick-and-mortar stores this Black Friday compared to last year, according to retail-tracking firm ShopperTrak.
"The convergence of technology is happening faster and faster," said Goldberg. "It's becoming more seamless, and we are seeing consumers using the technology more and more easily."
The trend of consumers favoring online shopping is not just in the U.S.. Two weeks ago in China, e-commerce giant Alibaba saw record sales of $30.8 billion in the 24 hours of Nov 11, or so-called "Singles Day," which is also having an impact in the U.S..
"Singles Day is now becoming a global event in its own way," attracting hundreds of U.S. retailers, Goldberg told China Daily.
"It's becoming more and more important for U.S. companies to recognize the power of Singles Day and what it really means to get visibility with Chinese customers," he said.
Cyber Monday, on the other hand, remains more targeted to the U.S. market, according to Goldberg. And unlike Singles Day, which started as a cultural event and developed into a major commercial event, Cyber Monday is primarily commercial, aiming to prolong the Thanksgiving shopping spree.
This year, the online and offline sectors together made the Thanksgiving holiday a "good start" to the holiday season, according to Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail research and consulting firm.
From Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, more than 165 million Americans shopped either in stores or online, according to the National Retail Federation, which expected a 4.8 percent increase in holiday spending over the months of November and December compared to last year.
Johnson told China Daily that this year is the best they've seen since the 2005 to 2006 period, when the industry also saw robust holiday sales.
And unlike the previous times, when rapid growth in the retail sector was supported by a debt-based bubble economy, this time the growth has a much stronger foundation and would thus be more sustainable, he said.
"People are spending out of a higher household cash flow — in other words, they are spending out of available wages and salaries," said Johnson.
"Consumers feel better this year about their economic situation," which in part is because of the historically low unemployment rate, said Goldberg.
