Cyber Weekend Yields $7.5 Billion in Digital Sales

U.S. consumers spent nearly $7.5 billion online over the weekend between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. That’s according to data from Adobe, which found Super Sunday yielded $3.83 billion, followed closely by Small Business Saturday with $3.6 billion. It’s slightly less than the projected $7.6 billion, but still sets records for these dates sandwiched between marquee holiday shopping days. A report from financial services firm American Express and small business association the National Federation of Independent Business said consumers spent $19.6 billion overall on Saturday. [article_summary section="1"] Not surprisingly, smaller businesses with less than $50 million in annual revenue saw Saturday revenue more than double compared to an average day in the previous month, Adobe said. Adobe also found small retailers have seen a 30% increase in online sales on average so far this season, compared to 66% for large retailers with more than $1 billion in annual revenue. Top-selling products on Small Business Saturday included the same favorites from Black Friday: toys from Frozen 2, L.O.L. Surprise! and Nerf. Similarly, top-selling electronics included AirPods and Samsung TVs, along with Fire TV, which was a top-seller on Thanksgiving. [article_summary section="2"] In a continuation of a trend we’ve seen so far this season, smartphone revenue accounted for 41.2% of all ecommerce revenue on Saturday. According to Adobe, that means year over year growth of 22.2%. Smartphone revenue on Saturday was also slightly higher than the season-to-date rate of 35.9%, which Adobe said indicates consumers are increasingly making gift purchases on their phones. In fact, smaller retailers saw 10% more revenue coming from smartphones compared to large retailers, Adobe said. Big ecommerce platforms, however, were more effective at converting on smartphones with 43% better conversion rates and almost triple the revenue compared to an average day in October. According to data from customer relationship management platform Salesforce, 76% of all digital traffic over the weekend came from a mobile device, although mobile orders hit their peak early at 60% on Thanksgiving Day. Salesforce said social shopping also peaked early, with 10% of mobile traffic coming from a social referring channel on Wednesday and Thursday and 7% of digital orders sourced by a social referral. With the first half of the holiday shopping season over, Adobe found U.S. consumers spent $68.2 billion online in November. All 30 days surpassed $1 billion in online sales and 11 days hit the $2 billion mark.