Did Cyber Monday break the record in online sales as predicted?

Now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are over, and our physical and digital wallets can take a well-deserved rest before the next wave of Christmas shopping, it's time for the aftermath.

The mind-blowing adoption of digital payments during this year's Black Friday was of immense proportions, but not unexpected. After the online sales reached a new high during Black Friday, many experts wondered whether Cyber Monday would be record-breaking for the US history of online sales.

Cyber Monday reached $6.59 billion in online sales

Adobe Insights, which analyzes the transactions of the US 100 biggest online retailers, predicted $6.6 billion in sales on Cyber Monday. It seems that they did a pretty good job analyzing the trends and behavior during Black Friday, because they got extremely close to the actual number of $6.59 billion. Quite assertive!

Thus, Cyber Monday marked a 16.8% increase in comparison to the same period last year, becoming the largest shopping day in the history of online sales - just as predicted. According to Adobe, November generated a record-breaking online revenue, accounting for $50 billion only in the USA. The newest predictions estimate that digital shopping is on track to generate $100 billion in sales by New Year.

Mobile payments are on the rise

After the aftermath of Black Friday, Cyber Monday was also marked by a strong adoption of mobile payments. In fact, they accounted for over $2 billion of the total online sales revenue, and for more than 40% of the visits to websites and e-commerce platforms. According to TechCrunch, the average purchase order via iOS was slightly bigger in comparison with the one made from an Android phone - $123 compared to $110.

Additionally, Adobe observed that consumers are increasingly becoming more tech-savvy, and they are really well-informed on the best websites to find great deals. One of the key players for this incredible mobile growth have definitely been millennials, who are consistently using their smartphones more than computers for many daily activities.

Surprisingly, not only huge online retailers but also small businesses have noticed a significant increase in mobile sales, obtaining 56.7% of their overall traffic via smartphones. Contrary to the popular opinion that small companies were more likely to focus on their physical store, a lot of them are actually switching to online-only due to the high costs associated with rent and maintenance of the physical establishment.

Online sales are gaining advantage over in-store shopping

With online and mobile shopping being the dominant choice for the majority of consumers this year, it is no surprise that in-store purchases are observing a decline. On Black Friday, shopping locations noticed a 3.6% decrease compared to last year, and more than 4.2% in high streets. On Cyber Monday, there was a footfall of approximately 4%.

With these numbers in mind, companies that do not develop their strategy around digital shopping are going to lose a lot of competitive advantage. If your business still doesn´t allow online payments, MYMOID offers a complete set of innovative solutions to get you started. Don´t hesitate to contact us for more information