U.S. Cyber Monday Online Sales Drop For First Time Ever

Online shopping by U.S. consumers on Cyber Monday slipped 1.4 percent from last year, with spending touching $10.7 billion, according to information provided by Adobe Analytics.

This marks the first time since Adobe started tracking consumer traffic on websites in 2012 that there has been a slowdown in online sales. Adobe looks into more than 1 trillion visits to shopping websites. Even though the start was slow, Adobe expects shopping activities to pick up as people step out to shop more.

According to Adobe Analytics, from November 1 through Cyber Monday on November 29, consumers in the U.S spent $109.8 billion online, up 12 percent from last year. And on 22 of those days, consumers purchased more than $3 billion worth of goods, which is yet another milestone.

Adobe expects digital sales between November 1 to December 31 to touch $207 billion, a 10 increase from last year.

During last year’s Cyber Monday, customers spent $10.8 billion in sales, while most people remained at home and shopped online due to the pandemic.

The slight dip in online shopping follows a pattern from Thanksgiving Day and on Black Friday this year, as customers do not spend all the money at one place. They spread out their shopping throughout the weekend known as “Cyber Week.” Attractive offers from retail companies like Amazon on Black Friday are an added attraction.

On the occasion of Black Friday, people spent more than $8.9 billion in sales, down from $9 billion a year ago. On Thanksgiving Day, online sales touched $5 billion online with some help from retail giants.

The stores saw lesser crowds than pre-pandemic days and crowds on Black Friday were up 47 percent from last year but down 28 percent from 2019.

Another reason why shopping has started early is because shoppers are worried about blockages in the global supply route and do not want to end up not purchasing what they want due to unavailability of stocks

On Cyber Monday, Adobe found that out-of-stock messages online rose 8 percent from the prior week. In November, out-of-stock messages on retailers’ websites were up 169 percent from before the pandemic.

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