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Consumer spending is expected to remain strong on Cyber Monday, after merchants saw robust holiday sales over Thanksgiving weekend. Shoppers in the United States are projected to spend $14.2 billion online on Cyber Monday, a 6.3% increase from a year ago, says Adobe Analytics. Spending is expected to peak at $16 million per minute between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.
Globally, Cyber Monday online sales are projected to reach $53.7 billion, an 8% increase from a year earlier, says Salesforce Inc.
In the U.S., some 57% of consumers shopping Monday are projected to make their purchases across three product categories: electronics, apparel, and furniture. Adobe projects spending on electronics to reach $3.6 billion, up 12.5% from a year ago; $2.7 billion on apparel, up 5.8%; and $1.8 billion on furniture, up 5.2%.
Deep discounts are expected to help drive sales across the three product categories, with discounts for electronics as high as 30%, 26% for apparel, and 18% for furniture, Adobe says. Other product categories expected to be deeply discounted include toys, appliances, and sporting goods.
Adobe Analytics bases its projections on transaction data from more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs, and 18 product categories.
Mobile shopping is expected to drive 58% of online sales Cyber Monday, generating $8.2 billion in spending, a 7.9% increase from a year ago. On Thanksgiving, online purchases made with a mobile device accounted for 61.6% of the day’s sales. It was the first time the share of sales on Thanksgiving through mobile devices exceeded the 60% threshold, according to Adobe.
Online traffic to merchant Web sites in the U.S. generated by artificial intelligence apps is expected to increase more than six-fold on Cyber Monday, compared to a year ago. Consumers are using generative AI services the most for purchasing appliances, toys, videogames, electronics, and jewelry. Between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30, online traffic to merchant sites in the U.S. generated by artificial intelligence apps increased more than seven-fold from a year earlier.
As shoppers headed into Cyber Monday, Adobe noted that consumers were buying higher-ticket items in electronics, appliances, and sporting goods.
Meanwhile, global and U.S. traffic from third-party AI agent channels, such as ChatGPT and Perplexity, tripled over the Thanksgiving shopping weekend compared to a year ago, Salesforce says.
AI-referred traffic drove higher conversions compared to traffic coming from social-media platforms. Conversion among consumers coming to merchant sites through AI agent channels was higher than among consumers coming from a merchant site through a social-media channel, Salesforce says.
Over the weekend, small businesses saw same-store sales increase 4.4% year-on-year on Small Business Saturday, says Quilt Software LLC, a provider of software to more than 20,000 small businesses in the U.S.
Overall, sales on Black Friday, traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year, were up 4.1% from a year ago, while e-commerce sales rose 10.4%, according to Mastercard Inc.’s SpendingPulse data service.
One category posting a notable year-over-year increase on Black Friday was apparel, at 5.7% overall, while jewelry saw a 2.75% increase. Consumers also dined out more on Black Friday than they did a year ago, with restaurants showing a 4.5% increase in sales from a year ago.
