Cyber Monday Spending Hits an All-Time High of $1.465 Billion, Mobile Plays a Big Role
Cyber Monday was a big hit, according to comScore.
How big? Online spending on the day of e-commerce smiles hit $1.465 billion, up 17 percent from Cyber Monday in 2011. This marked the heaviest online spending day of all time.
According to comScore, the $1.465 billion spent on Monday was 17 percent higher than the $1.251 billion spent on Cyber Monday last year. The analytics firm also notes that $16.4 billion has been spent online so far this holiday season, up 16 percent from the $14.1 billion spent in the same period last year.
The top gaining product category was “Digital Content & Subscriptions,” up 28 percent from Cyber Monday 2011. This was followed by “Consumer Electronics” with a 24 percent increase, “Computer Hardware” with a 22 percent increase, “Video Games, Consoles & Accessories” with an 18 percent increase and “Jewelry & Watches” with a 17 percent increase.
According to comScore’s report, 47.2 percent of Cyber Monday spending in the U.S. originated from home (including universities), up 4.0 percentage points from last year. Meanwhile, 47.1 percent of Cyber Monday spending originated from work computers, down 3.1 percentage points from last year. Another 5.7 percent of spending occurred from international locations, down 0.9 percentage points.
Separate numbers released by International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), which analyzed transactions from 500 U.S. retailers, indicate that Cyber Monday sales online surged 30.3 percent year-over-year. According to IBM, mobile devices accounted for 18 percent of visits to retailer websites (up 70 percent year-over-year) and 13 percent (up 96 percent) of sales on Cyber Monday.
PayPal reports that it saw mobile payments increase by 190 percent on Cyber Monday from the same day in 2011. Across all devices, noon-1 p.m. EST was the busiest period of shopping activity on Cyber Monday; for mobile devices, the peak was 1-2 p.m. EST.
“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.”
Cyber Monday floated the email marketing boat higher, too. According to The Retail Email Blog, run by Responsys research director Chad White, Cyber Monday propelled email volume during the five-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend to an all-time high.
“Major online retailers sent each of their subscribers an all-time high of 5.3 promotional emails on average during the 5-day period beginning on Thanksgiving and ending on Cyber Monday,” White wrote. “That was an 18% increase over the same period last year.”
By Jason Hahn
