Editor's take: The ongoing pandemic is expected to have a tremendous impact on holiday shopping this year. According to early forecasts from Adobe, many will turn to the Internet to reduce contact while buying for loved ones. It's also likely that we'll see a lot of retail therapy to help forget what has been a crummy year for many.

Adobe on Wednesday said it expects online holiday sales in the US to total a record $189 billion this year. Should the estimate come to fruition, it would represent a 33 percent year-over-year increase in online sales and roughly equal two years' growth in a single season.

Moreover, should another wave of stimulus checks go out and physical retail stores experience a second round of shutdowns, online spending could exceed $200 billion.

Adobe in its latest research report said that instead of Cyber Week, which typically runs from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, it expects November and December to turn into Cyber Months this year.

Breaking it down further, analytics suggest that online sales will top $2 billion each day between November 1 and November 21, increasing to $3 billion daily from November 22 through December 3.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday will be the exceptions, Adobe predicts, with online sales of $10 billion and $12.7 billion, respectively, representing YoY increases of 39 percent and 35 percent.

How consumers will shop is arguably just as telling as how much they'll spend. Adobe expects 42 percent of this year's online sales revenue to originate on smartphones, an increase of 55 percent compared to 2019.

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