U.S. Cyber Monday Sales Hit Record with $9.4 Billion

According to Adobe Analytics, Cyber Monday sales are on course to break records and hit $9.4 billion.

Consumers in the United States made it again. The record for Cyber Monday was hit and it amounted to $9.4 billion spent or 18.9% year-over-year growth, according to preliminary data by Adobe Analytics.

However, most of the buyers didn’t wait until Monday to start shopping since retailers started sales earlier in the month, just after Thanksgiving and Black Friday. As we have already reported Black Friday online consumers spent $7.4 billion.

Among the winners of this holiday season are Best Buy, Target and Walmart so far, while spending in the department stores is still growing at a slower pace.

This rise in online sales can be assigned to two factors: harsh weather across the whole United States makes more convenient for people to stay home and buy from their cozy chairs. Also, let’s not forget that this year’s holiday shopping season is pretty much shorter. As per Adobe, his year will also be a huge hit when it comes to buying from their mobile devices.

Director of Adobe Digital Insights Taylor Schreiner said:

“Consumers are reimagining what it means to shop during the holidays, with smartphones having a breakout season as well. We expect that consumers will spend $14 billion more this holiday season via their phones.”

According to the company, Americans spent $7.4 billion on Black Friday and $4.2 billion on Thanksgiving. That represents a 20% increase over last year for both holidays.

Salesforce (CRM) also projected new records for Cyber Monday with Americans spending $8 billion, which would represent a 15% increase over last year. The shopping fever is also rising in the whole world, with sales for Monday growing 12% over last year to the huge amount of $30 billion.

And, what is maybe one of the most interesting facts, is that approximately 75% of shopping done over the previous weekend was done through the mobile devices, which Salesforce said was “another groundbreaking period” for mobile.

An online sales platform Shopify, used by more than 1 million shoppers, noted that their Monday’s global sales data has already excelled $1.5 billion. That is more than the last year’s sales throughout the whole weekend. Shopify also claims that mobile was a more popular way for shoppers to buy than it was in previous years. According to the company, there were as many as 70% of sales transactions made on portable devices.

The shorter holiday season is sending retailers competing of who will give better discounts before Christmas. Adobe’s vice president of commerce product and platform, Jason Woosley, recently said he estimates consumers will spend approximately $29 billion online between Thursday and Monday. That five-day “Cyber Week” time should calculate for a 20% piece of the $143.8 billion in online sales Adobe predicted for this years’ holidays.

According to Wedbush Securities analysts, some of the best-sellers on Black Friday of this year were the Nintendo Switch, sports-centric video games like NBA2K and Apple AirPods Pro.

Andrew Yang for the Future Where Everybody Could Spend

2020 Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang has been a pretty open advocate when it comes to gifts and treats that the digital economy has to offer, especially when it comes to a universal basic income. Since announcing his bid for the White House last year Yang is arguing that workers at risk of being fired could be helped by forcing tech giants like Amazon to share their profits.

7,000+ retail locations are closing in the US in 2019 https://t.co/E4sjOVQKsO being a retail clerk is the most common job in the US. The average clerk is a 39 year old woman making $9-10 an hour.

— Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) July 12, 2019

According to analysts, in 2018 Amazon paid $0 in U.S. federal income tax on more than $11 billion in profits before taxes. Yang, therefore, proposes a 10% value-added tax (VAT). This tax is already being used in 160 countries and every developed country – except the United States.

He said:

“If we give the American people even a tiny slice of every Google search, every Facebook ad, every Amazon sale, and every robot truck mile, we can generate hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue very very quickly.”

If Yang would become the next president we can only imagine how the economy would grow during the holidays because, more people have – the more they spend.