INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The 2018 holiday season is predicted to be a bumper year for e-commerce, helped by economic forces like lower unemployment and underlying
trends like an ever-growing proportion of shoppers opting to spend their money online, and specifically on mobile devices
Thanksgiving, a day when brick-and-mortar stores tend to be closed, is a big one for online spending, and so far it off to a flying
start.
Adobe, which puts out real-time analytics tracking e-commerce sales, said that as of 2pm Pacific Time, $1.75 billion was spent
online, up from$406 million at 7am — representing respective growth of 28.6 percent growth and 23.2 percent over the same periods in
2017.
Adobetracks e-commerce transactions across 80 of the top 100 US online retailers and says its analytics are based onover 1 trillion
visits to retail sites and 55 million SKUs.
At this rate, Adobe said itbelieves that sales today will total a record $3.5billion, versus
Notably, this is revised up from figures Adobe put out earlier this month, when it projected$3.1 billion in sales for Thanksgiving.
It the
first day of the &big five& for holiday shopping
Figures from Internet Retailer research predict that the total amount that will be spent over the period between Thanksgiving and Cyber
Monday will be $21.6 billion
While rising tides might lift all boats, the biggest will reap the most rewards: it estimates that Amazon will account for nearly one-third
of all sales.
[gallery ids="1749955,1749954,1749953"]
The overall picture, interestingly, is that e-commerce continues to account for
between 10 and 20 percent of all retail sales, largely the same proportion that we&ve seen for years
In other words, while the overall pie is growing in size, the proportion of the piece for online commerce does not appear to be changing for
the moment.
Figures from eMarketer put overall US holiday sales at retailers at over $1 trillion for this season, while e-commerce will be
around $123 billion, or around 12 percent of all sales.
We&ll be on the lookout for some mobile stats, but so far, the prediction is that
they will see their highest-ever level of activity, both for browsing and for spending
So far, smartphones have accounted for 48.4 percent of all retail site visits and 28.2 percent of sales, which outpaces on browsing but not
on sales — respectively, desktop accounted for 43.4 percent of site visits, but 62.3 percent of sales (cart abandonment continues to be a
Tablets in both categories hover at around eight percent.
&Black Friday& — the day after Thanksgiving — was once considered the
official start of the holiday shopping season, but that start has come earlier and earlier each year, with brick-and-mortar stores kicking
off their sales earlier to compete more with internet-based shopping sites.
Between November 1 and yesterday, a total of$34.3 billion has
been spent online,up 17.6 percent
Notably, all21 daysin November hit more than $1 billion in sales, and two days each saw $2 billion in spend
That high spend reaches a kind of zenith in the next four days, when one out of every five dollars will be spent, working out to $23.4
billion in sales (or 19 percent of all holiday season shopping).
&Pre-Thanksgivingdeals appear to have enticed consumers to spend a little
earlier as we saw our second $2 billion day of the holiday shopping season
That growth is continuing in the early morning hours ofThanksgivingDay and we expect strong growth in sales and mobile throughout the day,&
said Taylor Schreiner, director, Adobe Digital Insights.
Adobe said that this year will see an even higher total than previous years because
of how the calendar works out: there will be an extra day between Thanksgiving and Christmas, working out to $284 million spent.
In terms of
products that are doing well so far, Adobe notes thattop toys include L.O.L
Top electronics meanwhile are Amazon Fire TV, Roku and Apple iPads.
Discounts will be coming in strong through Cyber Monday, but they are
Average savings, Adobe noted, include 16.3 percent for computers, 4.7 percent for TVs and 12.2 percent for toys.
I am not sure how and why
retailers would coalesce around these trends, but apparently today is best for sporting goods (discounted on average by 13 percent)
Black Friday is best for computers (16 percent) and tablets (33 percent).The Sunday before Cyber Monday will see the best dealsforapparel
(22 percent), appliances (18 percent) and jewelry (5 percent) (seems to be a &female& theme there), and the biggest discountsfortoys will
happen Cyber Monday (19 percent), when kids are back at school and can&t peek over their parents& shoulders as they are snapping up stuff to
put under the tree.
Updated with latest sales figures
