Cyber Monday E-Commerce Makes History

November 30, 2011

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Cyber Monday reached $1.25 billion in online spending this year, rising 22% from 2010 and representing the heaviest online spending day in history, and just the second day on record to surpass the billion-dollar threshold, according to November 2011 research from comScore. Data from comScore’s analysis indicates that for the holiday season-to-date (November 1-28), $15 billion has been spent online, marking a 15% hike from the corresponding days last year. Shopping momentum on Cyber Monday hit its peak at 11:05am PST/2:05pm EST, according to IBM Coremetrics data. IBM’s data also indicates that consumer shopping maintained strong momentum after commuting hours on both the east and west coast.

Buyers and Average Spending Both Increase

Cyber Monday’s sales growth this year was driven by an increase in both the number of buyers, which increased 11% from 9 to 10 million, and the average spending per buyer, which rose 9% from $114 to $125. According to comScore, the 10 million online spenders also represents the first time on record that threshold has been reached in a single day.
Data from the NPD Group disputes this finding, however: according to the “Anatomy of Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2011″ study, the growth in Cyber Monday results comes from the greater numbers of people shopping online this year rather than spending more this year. Results from the study indicate that almost 28% of consumers reported shopping online Cyber Monday compared to 21% last year, while of those shoppers, 16% reported making a purchase this year compared to 12% last year. This year, though, NPD data indicates that consumers spent only $187.83 on average, compared to last year’s $276.71.

Shopping at Work Drives Half of Spending

Half of dollars spent online at US web sites originated from work computers, up 2% from 49.2% last year, according to comScore. Buying from home comprised the majority (43.2%) of the remaining share, while buying at US web sites from international locations accounted for 6.6% of sales. More information on international Cyber Monday shopping is available at MarketingVox.

Mobile Sales and Traffic Soar

Meanwhile, according to IBM, 10.8% of consumers used a mobile device to visit a retailer’s site on Cyber Monday, more than double the 3.9% who did so in 2010. Furthermore, mobile sales also showed dramatic growth, reaching 6.6% of the population, almost triple the proportion in 2010 (2.3%).

Other Findings

• Coremetrics data indicates that shoppers using the iPad drove more retail purchases on Cyber Monday than any other device.
• Shoppers referred from social networks generated 0.56% of all online sales on Cyber Monday. Facebook led the pack, accounting for 86% of all social media traffic.
• Discussions on social media sites leading up to Cyber Monday increased in volume by 115% compared to 2010. According to Nielsen, in 2011 buzz about Black Friday/Cyber Monday peaked the day after Thanksgiving and made up 2.9% of all buzz that day, representing a 15% relative increase in the share of buzz compared to 2010. Furthermore, Nielsen reports that Cyber Monday buzz has also increased year-over-year, and is likely to climb further as discussion of Cyber Week sales continues throughout the week.

About the Data: The IBM Coremetrics Benchmark captures online marketing results and commerce data from more than 500 contributing US retailers. The NPD study is an online survey of a nationally representative sample of more than 3,300 U.S. consumers ages 18+ assessing what they did on Black Friday & Cyber Monday and why.