US shoppers spent US$9.2 billion online on Cyber Monday — up 17 percent from a year earlier and a record — boosting an already robust holiday shopping season.
Spending fell just shy of Adobe Inc’s forecast of US$9.4 billion.
The company tracks transactions across 80 of the top 100 US online retailers, and it said that four “golden hours of retail” from 10pm to 2am generated 30 percent of the day’s revenue as shoppers competed to snag the best deals.
Photo: Getty Images / AFP
Extreme weather across the continental US gave consumers plenty of reason to shop from the coziness of their own homes.
A storm barreled across the nation and pummeled the Northeast just as Thanksgiving travelers were heading home.
While Cyber Monday remains the biggest online spending day of the year, shoppers increasingly favor buying online from the start of the holiday season, rather than waiting for the day’s specials.
That is in part as they transition to purchasing via mobile devices instead of from computers, often at the office after the holiday weekend.
US shoppers are expected to spend US$135 billion online in November and December, representing 13.4 percent of all holiday sales, up from 12.3 percent a year earlier, Emarketer said.
The shopping season is also shorter this year with six fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas than last year.
Adobe said big e-commerce platforms such as Amazon.com Inc would benefit the most from the surge in sales.
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