Cyber Monday Sales Expected To Rise 19 Pct YOY

Cyber Monday is tracking to break eCommerce records and possibly go down in history as the biggest day ever for online sales in the U.S., The Financial Times (FT) reported on Sunday (Dec. 1). 

Early data that shows fewer people shopped at physical stores on Black Friday shines a light on Amazon’s retail disruption. Across Thanksgiving and Black Friday, retail visitors dropped a combined 3 percent from 2018, according to analytics company ShopperTrak. Using a different methodology, on Black Friday RetailNext showed a 2.1 percent traffic decline and a 1.6 percent in-store sales decline.

Conversely, Adobe Analytics showed that eCommerce sales set new records. Online shoppers were projected to drop $9.4 billion on Cyber Monday, about 19 percent more than last year, after already having spent $7.4 billion on Black Friday. 

The combined projected numbers will be lower than China’s Single’s Day in November, where Alibaba posted over $38 billion in eCommerce sales.

Edison Trends showed Amazon sales on Thanksgiving and Black Friday jumped 49 percent from last year.

When better-performing retailers combine their online and physical stores, they are better positioned to compete with Amazon. Adobe showed a 43 percent increase in online orders being picked up from stores.

Adobe also showed that the average online order on Black Friday rose almost 6 percent from last year to $168.

Brian Field, senior director at ShopperTrak, told FT that people were more “intentional” about making purchases at physical stores, rather than browsing.

RetailNext said the “conversion rate” of store visitors was higher on Black Friday than in 2018.

KeyBanc Capital Markets found that shopping mall traffic was “somewhat muted” despite some retailers offering discounts of up to 50 percent.

Earnings season, which for most companies provide snapshots of the three months that ended in July, show the secular shift at work for retailers, where clicks are replacing bricks. Sales were up 70 basis points, above the 30 basis points that economists had forecast. Internet retailers were up 2.8 percent in July, a jumped helped in no small part by Amazon Prime Day.