What just happened? Shoppers in the US spent a total of $10.7 billion during Cyber Monday, making it the biggest online shopping day of the year thus far. During the peak hour of 8 pm - 9 pm Pacific, consumers spent an average of $12 million every minute.
Impressive as it sounds, the figure is actually down 1.4 percent compared to 2020.
Top sellers on Cyber Monday included toys, video games and electronics, a category that includes game consoles.
Cyber Week, which runs from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, managed to generate $33.9 billion in online spending. Again, that's down 1.4 percent year over year.
Taylor Schreiner, director at Adobe Digital Insights, said with early deals in October, consumers did not wait around for discounts on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. "This was further fueled by growing awareness of supply chain challenges and product availability," Schreiner added.
Indeed, the prevalence of out-of-stock messages was up 258 percent in November compared to two holiday seasons ago (November 2019).
The holiday shopping season to date (November 1 to November 29) has seen consumers spend $109.8 billion online, up nearly 12 percent compared to the same period a year ago. Buyers have also set a new milestone, as 22 of those days have exceeded $3 billion in online spend. Last year, only nine days managed to top the $3 billion mark at this point.
Looking ahead, Adobe expects full season (November 1 to December 31) to reach $207 billion. Should the forecast come to fruition, it would represent 10 percent year-over-year growth.
Image credit Karolina Grabowska