Cyber Monday 2019: Biggest Online Sales Day in History

Cyber Monday once again set sales records, collecting an awe-inspiring $9.4 billion, making it the single biggest digital sales day ever, reports Adobe.

Adobe bases its estimate by measuring transactions from 80 of the top 100 U.S. online retailers. The record-setting $9.4 billion estimate marks a 19.7% year-over-year increase, besting last year’s $7.9 billion record. Mobile transactions soared with $3.1 billion of Cyber Monday online sales coming from smartphones, representing the highest ever YoY dollar growth for this device. 

A record $81.5 billion has been spent so far this season (Nov 1 through December 2), representing a 14.0% growth year-over-year compared to the $71.5 billion spent during the same time period last year, report Adobe. In addition, Salesforce reports that in its Cyber Week insights, that a record $31 billion was spent during Cyber Week, up 15% percent from 2018.

“Cyber Monday sales surged late last night as consumers established new records both in overall purchases and purchases made via smartphones,” said Taylor Schreiner, principal analyst and head of Adobe Digital Insights. “The coming days will reveal if retailers will extend their holiday sales more than years past due to the shortest possible remaining shopping season till Christmas. Whatever the case, companies offering fast fulfillment options like free one-day shipping or buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS) will be well positioned to help consumers purchase what they want in the few weeks left before Christmas.” 

Additional findings from Adobe’s Cyber Monday research include: 

• Key Hours: During the hours between 10 p.m. – 2 a.m. Eastern, consumers spent a record $2.9 billion, a 24% growth year-over-year.
• BOPIS: Season to date, BOPIS has grown 40.9%, with consumers 20% more likely to convert with retailers who offer BOPIS vs. those that don’t. This was especially true on the big days, with Cyber Monday conversion at BOPIS retailers outperforming non-BOPIS retailers by 45%; Black Friday BOPIS retailer conversion outperformed non-BOPIS by a whopping 64%.
• Bigger Carts: On average, consumers’ shopping carts were 6% bigger at checkout on Cyber Monday than they were last year. 
• Giants vs. smaller retailers: On Cyber Monday, both large retailers (over $1B in yearly revenue) and small retailers (< $50M in yearly revenue) benefited greatly from consumers’ attention, as large retailers saw a 540% boost in sales over an average day, while their smaller counterparts lagged slightly behind with a 337% increase. 
• Marketing channels: Consumers predominantly reached e-commerce websites either by going through a paid search ad (24.1% of all visits) or by typing in the web address directly into their web browser (22.5% of all visits).