Did you do any work yesterday? The digital till for the thousands of online retailers that marketed the heck out of Cyber Monday suggests that no, you did not.
Yesterday’s online shopping orgy was the largest in history, with a 16 percent jump from 2012, to almost $2.3 billion in sales, according to Adobe Systems (ADBE). IBM (IBM) said research from its digital analytics division showed that Cyber Monday sales (PDF) increased 20.6 percent from a year ago, with the average order close to $129, down 1 percent from 2012. Mobile sales jumped to 17 percent of all online sales, up 55 percent from Cyber Monday last year, according to IBM. Most of that buying was done via tablets, not smartphones, both companies said.
Among retailers, however, the overall mood for the shopping season has been dismal, with spending down almost 3 percent to $57.4 billion over the four days beginning on Thanksgiving, according to the National Retail Federation. Interestingly, more than 87 percent of consumers surveyed by the NRF last week said they planned to use their computers at home to shop on Cyber Monday, with only 12 percent fessing up to a bit of retail distraction at work.
Adobe says its online shopping data are based on analyzing almost 900 million visits to 2,000 retailers’ websites on Cyber Monday and more than 3 billion visits since Thanksgiving Day. IBM’s data are based on aggregates from 800 U.S. retail websites.
