Cyber Monday sales are on track to hit a new record.
Adobe, which tracks 80% of online transactions at the 100 largest U.S. Retailers, predicts that shoppers will spend $2.98 billion online on Monday, making it the biggest day ever for e-commerce. That would mark a 12% increase in spending from the same day last year.
In recent years, retailers have turned the Monday following Thanksgiving into a sales blitz. It’s the online answer to Black Friday, even though it’s questionable whether all the discounts are really bigger than other days during the holidays.
Top sellers on Monday included Star Wars toys, Samsung 4K TVs, Apple’s iPad Mini and iPad Air 2, and Lego Star Wars tots, according to Adobe. On average, retailers marked items down 20%.
More shoppers used mobile devices to shop, in keeping with the shift by shoppers to smartphones and tablets. Forty-nine percent of shopping visits and 28% of online sales will be completed using mobile devices, Adobe predicted.
By the end of the day, shoppers will have spent over $514 million through mobile. Around $313 million will come from smartphones and another $201 million will be through tablets, Adobe predicted.
By location, Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago and Los Angeles were the cities with the highest online sales growth between Thanksgiving and Sunday compared with last year. Adobe didn’t reveal the size of the gains.
The record-breaking sales on Cyber Monday reflected a major shift in how people shopped during the highly anticipated holiday season. Coins2Dayreported on Sunday about National Retail Federation survey that found more Americans shopped online this past weekend than in stores.
More large brick and mortar retailers including Target (TGT) offered heavy discounts as the companies looked to compete with e-commerce juggernaut Amazon (AMZN). Target even suffered an intermittent outage from the high traffic on Monday. Adobe reported that these “brick-and-click retailers” saw the biggest growth in sales year-over-year, at 18%.
Together, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday brought in $11 billion in online sales, a 15% increase from last year. That will account for 30% of all online sales for November, Adobe said. But as retailers continue to offer free, fast shipping, shoppers will continue to spend well into December. The first 18 days next month are all expected to be see $1 billion in sales.
For more about Black Friday, watch this video: