Just like that, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday have come and gone. The NRF predicted that purchases in brick and mortar stores would increase a little but stay similar to years past, but that mobile purchases would make a bigger increase this year – and boy were they right.
While there were still shoppers who wanted to keep with tradition of waiting in line for hours in order to get their hands on hot ticket items, many realized the online sales were just as good and opted to shop from the comfort of their couches. Stores like Target and Best Buy even started their online sales for hot ticket items days before Thanksgiving, which was much different from sales in years past. Here’s some of the statistics we found interesting from this year’s Thanksgiving and Black Friday e-commerce sales:
- $ 4.45 billion was spent by shoppers online on Black Friday and Thanksgiving
- Black Friday brought in $ 2.72 billion in e-commerce sales, this is up 14% from 2014
- Thanksgiving Day brought in $ 1.73 billion in e-commerce sales, this is up 25% from 2014
- During the two day period, one-third of online shoppers used their mobile phones to make purchases
- Top-selling items included Lego Star Wars, the Barbie Dream House, Samsung 4k television sets and Apple’s iPad mini.
- The average online discount was 24%
- Mobile phone purchases brought in $ 583 million in sales on Black Friday and a record breaking $ 639 million on Thanksgiving Day
- Tablets drove 15% of sales on Black Friday, which is a 2% decrease from last year
Since mobile sales did so well throughout the holiday week and weekend, Cyber Monday sales weren’t as high as expected, but they still added to the momentum surrounding ecommerce sales. This year Americans bought more than $ 3 billion worth of goods on Cyber Monday, which is up nearly 12% from last years $ 2.68 billion. During Cyber Monday the average discount on items sold was 21.5%. Although Cyber Monday performed better than years past, it did not go without a hitch. Multiple large retailers had their sites crash and it was estimated that 14 in every 100 consumers logged on to find their chosen product out of stock.
With such a big increase, it is clear that retailers and consumers are finally on the same page for mobile shopping. One of the biggest changes retailers made leading up to this was improving their omnichannel experience. This year more than ever retailers have their own smartphone and tablet apps. This helped shoppers access special deals, find all their favorite items, and checkout faster and easier than ever.
Photo credit: Flickr user Robbert Noordzij
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