Cyber Monday: The Largest Shopping Day in U.S. History

Photo courtesy Alamy

America’s affinity for online shopping was showcased when this past Cyber Monday 2017 became the largest online shopping day in U.S. history. According to Adobe Insights, a company which measures online transactions from the 100 largest web retailers in the country, a record of $6.59 billion was transacted, resulting in the largest online shopping day in U.S. History. This is a 16.8% increase from last year’s sales. Adobe Insights also revealed that transactions using cell phones are “hitting record highs”, with mobile sales reaching $2 billion for the first time.

“This year, mobile shopping was dominant both in the morning and afternoon, and desktop only staged a comeback in the evening when people were home,” said the director of Adobe’s Digital Insights division. Adobe claimed that 61.1% of shoppers used a mobile phone to access retail sites.

According to Adobe, the top sellers on Cyber Monday included the Nintendo Switch, Hatchimals and Colleggtibles figurines, Apple AirPods, streaming devices such as Google Chromecast and Roku, and the video game Super Mario Odyssey.

Not surprisingly, Amazon was the go-to store for many customers this year. According to CNBC, Amazon will profit from up to 50% of the total e-commerce holiday transactions. A spokesperson from Amazon said that last year the company sold more than 64 million items, which worked out to 740 items a second.

However, the increase in online sales have also been marked by a decrease with in-store sales. In-store visits dropped 1.6% from last year, according to retail analytics firm ShopperTank. This coincides with years of companies like Sears, Kmart, and J.Crew downsizing their retail footprint to compete with big e-commerce sites such as Amazon. Cyber Monday sales show how Americans are shifting the way they shop for goods, manifesting the new era of online shopping.