US figures show discount offers being spread over month or longer

“With early deals in October, consumers were not waiting around for discounts on big shopping days like Cyber Monday and Black Friday,” said Taylor Schreiner, Director at Adobe Digital Insights. 

Spending spread over Oct and Nov

“This was further fuelled by growing awareness of supply chain challenges and product availability. It spread out e-commerce spending across the months of October and November, putting us on track for a season that still will break online shopping records.”

So far this season (1-29 November), consumers have already spent $109.8-billion online, growing significantly at 11.9 percent over last year. 

It means that 22 days have now exceeded $3-billion in online spend, a new milestone. In 2020, only 9 days topped $3-billion at this point. The season has smoothed out considerably, with e-commerce becoming a more ubiquitous daily activity. Adobe adds that it expects the full season (1 November to 31 December) to hit $207-billion in online spending. At 10 percent year-on-year growth, this would be a new record.

Interestingly, Adobe says that mobile phone-based shopping has slowed. On Cyber Monday, smartphones accounted for just 39.7 percent of online sales (vs desktop), rising by a modest 8.4 percent year-or-year.

“With many consumers working from home, smartphones are losing some of their potential as a major shopping channel,” the company states. “For years, the trajectory showed that mobile was on a course to surpass the 50 percent mark in share of online sales, which has since been derailed. Consumers are using their phones to browse instead (57 percent share of web visits).”