As of yesterday afternoon, Cyber Monday online sales were up 18 percent but apparently a surge of activity yesterday evening helped push the day’s e-commerce sales to record amounts. Cyber Monday online sales, according to IBM’s Coremetrics report, were up 33 percent over 2010, and up 29.3 percent over Black Friday.
comScore is reporting that Cyber Monday sales reached a record $1.25 billion, up over 20 percent from last year, to become the heaviest online spending day in history. According to the Wall Street Journal, this is only the second time a billion dollars in online commerce has occurred in one day. For the holiday season-to-date, $15 billion has been spent online, 15 percent increase versus the same days last year.
Overall, 10 million people bought online on Cyber Monday, representing the first time on record that threshold has been reached in a single day. The average online buyer conducted 1.9 online transactions on Cyber Monday for a total of nearly $125 in spending.
IBM says that the average order amount was up 2.6 percent this year from $193.24 to $198.26. The shopping peaks during the day took place at 11:05am PST/2:05pm EST as well as after commuting hours on both the east and west coast.
comScore also reports that half of dollars spent online at U.S. Web sites originated from work computers, up slightly from last year. Buying from home comprised the majority of the remaining share (43.2 percent) while buying at U.S. Web sites from international locations accounted for 6.6 percent of sales.
On Cyber Monday, 10.8 percent of people used a mobile device to visit a retailer’s site, up from 3.9 percent in 2010. Additionally, mobile sales were up as well, reaching 6.6 percent on Cyber Monday versus 2.3 percent in 2010.
Interestingly, more people flocked to mobile devices to shop on Black Friday than Cyber Monday. On Cyber Monday mobile traffic averaged 10.8 percent compared to 14.3 percent on Black Friday. And consumer sales on mobile devices reached 6.6 percent versus 9.8 percent on Black Friday.
Apple’s iPhone and iPad continued to rank one and two for mobile device retail traffic (4.1 percent and 3.3 percent respectively). In fact, shoppers using the iPad drove more retail purchases than any other device with conversion rates reaching 5.2 percent compared to 4.6 percent for the iPhone.
Android came in third with 3.2 percent. Collectively iPhone and iPad accounted for 7.4 percent of all online retail traffic versus 10.2 percent on Black Friday.
Referrals from social networks were only slightly up yesterday from last week. Shoppers referred from Social Networks generated 0.56 percent of all online sales on Cyber Monday versus 0.53 percent on Black Friday. Similar to Black Friday, Facebook led the pack, accounting for 86 percent of all social media traffic.
Discussions on social media sites leading up to Cyber Monday increased in volume by 115 percent compared to 2010. Consumers were mainly sharing tips about using price comparison websites while avoiding cyber scams, Cyber Monday deals for international consumers and Black Friday in-store shopping experiences.
eBay also released its Cyber Monday stats, revealing that consumers in the U.S. spent two and a half times more via eBay Mobile this Cyber Monday than last year. PayPal Mobile announced a six-fold (552 percent) increase in global mobile payment volume compared to Cyber Monday 2010. And GSI Commerce announced a four-fold (374 percent) increase in U.S. mobile sales when compared to 2010.
Shoppers in Athens, GA; Los Angeles and New York spent the most via eBay Mobile on Cyber Monday. For PayPal, there was a more than four-fold (397 percent) increase in the number of customers shopping through PayPal mobile on Cyber Monday 2011 compared to last year. On Cyber Monday 2011, PayPal saw global mobile payment volume more than double (154 percent ) compared to an average Monday. And Cyber Monday 2011 resulted in a 17 percent increase in global mobile payment volume compared to Black Friday 2011.
We also saw record breaking Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales, so the big jump in Cyber Monday sales isn’t completely surprising. More and more retailers pushed lucrative online deals, as well as free shipping offers this year, making shopping online more convenient and wallet-friendly for consumers. And the risk of pepper spray incidents in stores certainly was an incentive for shoppers to purchase from their computers or mobile phones.
