Online retail sales on the Monday after Thanksgiving grew 5.8% over last year, Adobe Analytics, reports in line with expectations. With plenty of merchandise on hand, retailers offered deep discounts in such categories as toys, computers and electronics.

Cyber Monday lived up to its billing as a big bargain day for online sales and consumers responded, spending $11.3 billion with U.S. online retailers yesterday, Adobe Analytics reports. That set a record for one-day retail web sales, and the 5.8% year-over-year growth was in line with Adobe’s projections.

With the supply chain disruptions of the pandemic largely overcome, retailers offered deep discounts. That led to big sales, Adobe says, in such categories as:

  • Toys (online sales on Cyber Monday were 684% higher than on an average day in October)
  • Sporting goods (up 466%)
  • Appliances (458%)
  • Books (439%)
  • Jewelry (410%)
  • Electronics (391%)
  • Computers (372%)

Discounts were higher than last year in several categories, Adobe says. For instance, in electronics, deals peaked at 25% off list price (versus 8% in 2021).

Cyber Monday deals also peaked for:

  • Toys: 34% (versus 19% in 2021)
  • Computers: 20% (versus 10%)
  • Televisions: 17% (versus 11%)
  • Apparel: 18% (versus 13%)
  • Sporting goods: 10% (versus 6%)
  • Furniture: 8% (versus 2%)
  • Appliances: 16% (versus 4%)

“With oversupply and a softening consumer spending environment, retailers made the right call this season to drive demand through heavy discounting,” says Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights. “It spurred online spending to levels that were higher than expected, and reinforced ecommerce as a major channel to drive volume and capture consumer interest.”

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For the Cyber 5 period from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, Adobe estimates that U.S. online retail sales totaled $35.3 billion, a 4.0% increase from $33.9 billion during the same period last year. That also was in line with Adobe’s pre-holiday estimates.

Shoppers return to stores on Black Friday

The relatively modest increases in online sales this holiday season reflects more consumers shopping in brick-and-mortar stores this year now that the coronavirus outbreak has eased in the U.S. On Black Friday, in-store foot traffic was up 2.9% compared to last year and on Thanksgiving Day 19.7%, according to Sensormatic Solutions, which tracks shopper footfall in stores and malls.

That shift also emerged from data released today by the National Retail Federation, the main U.S. retailer trade group. NRF reported that more than 122.7 million consumers shopped in physical stores over the Cyber 5 holiday period. That’s a 17% increase from 105 million last year. Meanwhile, 130.2 million shopped online, a 2% increase from 2021.

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Consumers spent an average of $325.44 on holiday-related purchases over the course of the weekend, up from $301.27 in 2021, with gifts accounting for $229.21 of that total. 90% of Thanksgiving weekend shoppers felt the deals offered by retailers were as good or better than last year, according to an NRF survey of 3,326 adult consumers from Nov. 23-27.

NRF reiterated its projection of 6%-8% growth in total retail sales, online and offline, for the holiday period. Digital Commerce 360 predicts online sales will increase 6.1% this holiday season versus 2021.

Cyber Monday 2022 sales increased 20.0% compared to $9.42 billion in 2019, the last year before the pandemic hit, a compound annual growth rate of 6.3%. For the five-day holiday period, sales increased 23.8% compared to $28.5 billion in 2019, a compound annual growth rate of 7.4%.

Most Cyber 5 sales come from mobile devices

Adobe also reported today:

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  • Mobile devices accounted for a majority of online sales during the five-day period for the first time, 51% versus 46% last year. On Thanksgiving Day, smartphones and tablets represented 55% of sales, an increase from 51% in 2021. On Cyber Monday, 43% of sales came from mobile devices, up from 40%.
  • Buy now, pay later (BNPL) orders increased 85%, and 88% in dollar terms, during the holiday period versus the week prior.
  • Consumers used curbside pickup less this year, apparently more comfortable going into stores than they were last year. Curbside pickup represented 13% of online orders on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday, down from 21% last year for retailers that offer the service. On Cyber Monday, shoppers picked up 17% of online orders at curbside, down from 18%.
  • Paid search remained the biggest single marketing driver of online sales at 28% of online orders during the five-day period. 18% of orders came from consumers navigating directly to retail websites, affiliates and partner websites, email came in at 17% and organic search at 15%. Sales resulting from clicks on social media remained at less than 5% during the period, but that share grew 27% year over year.

Adobe bases its estimates on more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites in 18 categories. Its clients include more than 85 of the 100 leading online retailers in North America according to Digital Commerce 360.

Average selling price increases 8% over the holiday period

Other technology providers to online retailers reported data based on their clients’ results. Here are statistics from Salesforce, which provides ecommerce and marketing software, for Cyber Monday:

  • Online sales for U.S. retailers totaled $12.2 billion, an 8.3% increase over last year. Meanwhile, global e-retail sales rose 4.2% to $46.2 billion.
  • The average discount was 30% in the U.S. and 28% worldwide.
  • Average selling price increased 8% in the U.S. and 5% worldwide.
  • The categories with the highest discounts were general apparel at 36%, active apparel and footwear 23% and general footwear 21%.

Search marketing technology provider Searchspring reported the following:

  • Black Friday accounted for 25% of search requests during Thanksgiving weekend, compared with 22% for Cyber Monday.
  • 64% of searches came from mobile devices and 19% from desktops.
  • “Socks” was the most-searched term, with Searchspring processing 48,976 searches over the weekend, followed by “long sleeve” and “leggings.”
  • Searchspring saw 35,273 searches for “Christmas.”

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