An American tradition, this year Thanksgiving has marked the start of a sales frenzy which continues on Black Friday and ends on the note of CyberMonday. The three holidays lined up to make the most frenzied shopping spree that leads up to the busy Christmas period which is lying a month away.
But it is not just the United States as consumers from across the world had spent more than US$5.3 billion in the two-days sales starting on Thanksgiving last Thursday which was extended to Black Friday. This figure accounts for an 18 percent increase from the previous year, according to a report from Adobe Systems.
In this scenario, Amazon, the giant internet business says that Thanksgiving is gradually becoming the new Black Friday as the company noted that some of its site’s Best Black Friday deals have already heated up during the “Turkey 5”.
However, when evaluating just Black Friday, the sales on the popular shopping festivity accounts for an estimated US$3.34 billion by the end of the day, which is a 21.6 percent increase from the same day last year, says Adobe Systems.
But comparatively, this year more buyers were going online for bargains and convenience instead of the traditional campout outside the bricks and mortar shop. Spending via mobile devices on Friday in the United States increased 33 percent to an all-time high of US$1.2 billion.
These results were not unexpected as it was clear that the mobile platform has a significant impact on e-commerce sales as apparent on Alibaba’s Singles Day Sales held on November 11. Furthermore, mobile platforms are convenient for customers to compare and do their shopping anywhere, anytime and in anyway.
Major retailers, like Amazon, Walmart, Target and eBay, noted that mobile traffic and sales were on the rise. Amazon said that mobile orders on Thanksgiving topped Cyber Monday last year, for example, while Walmart said that over 70 percent of website traffic on Thanksgiving was mobile. Target said that 60 percent of Thanksgiving sales were from mobile devices.
What’s interesting, however as reported by Adobe, is that smartphones do not drive as many conversions as tablets and desktops. Because while conversions were up overall, smartphone conversions were at 1.9 percent, compared with tablets at 3.7 percent and desktops at 4 percent. While Holiday averages also showed similar properties where it was 1.3 percent for phones, while 2.9 percent and 3.2 percent for tablets and desktop respectively.
Additionally, Adobe also noted this year’s top-selling electronics were Apple iPads, Samsung 4K TVs, the Apple Macbook Air, LG TVs and Microsoft Xbox. While top-selling toys included Lego Creator Sets, electric scooters from Razor, Nerf Guns, DJI Phantom Drones, and Barbie Dreamhouse.
Adobe’s report is based on aggregated and anonymous data from 22.6 billion visits to retail websites. But Adobe’s sample is large enough for its numbers to be fairly close. Its report is based on aggregated data from 22 billion visits to retail websites and includes 80 percent of all online transactions from the top 100 U.S. retailers.
Despite the record numbers, the e-commerce industry is still recovering from the downturn it took following the election.
“The negative impact on online shopping we saw following the election has not been fully made up, but consumers are back online and shopping,” said Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst, and director, Adobe Digital Insights, in a statement. “As spending ramps up on Black Friday, we are back on track. We still expect Cyber Monday to surpass Black Friday and become the largest online sales day in history with $3.36 Billion.”
On another note, President-elect Donald Trump has also participated the online sales excitement as on Friday morning, Trump’s online store has made an announcement that it was offering a 30 percent off deal on all campaign products, which includes a US$149 Christmas ornament, following by a promotional email saying that “President-elect Trump loves a great deal.”
For more information, please visit Adobe Online Shopping Data
By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media
