Holiday Spending In US Hit $108 Billion

Consumer spending during the holidays in the U.S. came in at $108 billion, marking a 14.7 percent increase from a year ago.

According to news from Reuters, Adobe Analytics — which collects data from around 80 percent of all online transactions from the top 100 U.S. retailers’ websites — offered up the results of its 2017 holiday shopping analysis. During the season, Adobe discovered that more consumers used their smartphones and tablets to make online purchases than in years past. Mobile shopping accounted for 52 percent of all traffic to retail websites and for one-third of all eCommerce purchases during that same timeframe.

Adobe Analytics said $6.6 billion of the total $108 billion was spent during Cyber Monday, which ended up being the biggest shopping day ever in the U.S. Adobe said Nintendo’s Switch game console, Google’s Chromecast, Roku, Hatchimals and Colleggtibles toys and Amazon’s Echo speaker were the most popular items. Combining online and offline data, holiday shopping increased 5.5 percent year over year to $691.9 billion, marking the highest level in 12 years, reported Reuters, citing data from the National Retail Federation.

While retailers enjoyed brisk sales, fraud was also on the rise, thanks to an increase in the number of online shoppers. According to ACI Worldwide, attempts to commit online fraud jumped during the holiday season, increasing 22 percent from Thanksgiving to December, compared to a year ago. The payment system company found that along with the fraud increase, overall online transactions also jumped 19 percent from Thanksgiving to the end of 2017.

“Over the 2017 holiday shopping season, merchants experienced significant growth in their digital channels, coupled with a substantial increase in fraud,” said Erika Dietrich, director of Risk Management for ACI Worldwide, in a press release . “The consistent, alarming uptick in fraudulent activity on key dates is a signal that merchants must be proactive in their efforts to identify weak points across the omnichannel payment process — and define the short- and long-term strategies necessary to improve security and enhance [the] customer experience.”