Thanksgiving 2022 online sales beat forecast at $5.3 billion, up 2.8% from last year, mobile accounted for 55% of all purchases
Analysts and e-commerce leaders are predicting a muted holiday online shopping season this year, with sales in the first three weeks of November essentially flat more year due to a weaker economy, inflation, and more people returning to shop in stores as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. But looking at Thanksgiving, the first big day of the holiday, the numbers seem to be stronger than expected. Adobe Analytics released figures showing that $5.29 billion was spent online on Thanksgiving Thursday. That's up 2.9% from a year ago, and ahead of the $5.1 billion originally forecast by Adobe for the day.
Mobile devices continue to play an increasing role in how people shop. About 55% of online sales were made on mobile devices yesterday, up 8.3% from a year ago.
"Mobile shopping has struggled to grow for many years as consumers found the experience lacking compared to the desktop," said Vivek Pandya, principal analyst, Adobe Digital Insights, in a press release. "This year's Thanksgiving has become an inflection point, where smartphones have driven real growth and underscores how much these experiences have improved."
Salesforce has more dynamic numbers: it notes from its calculations, based on 1.5 billion shoppers, that worldwide online sales rose 1% on Thanksgiving Day to 31 billion dollars, while in the United States in particular, they increased by 9% to reach 7.5 billion dollars. . Salesforce also said that 78% of sales traffic comes from mobile devices. The average order value, according to the report, was $105 worldwide and $120 for US sales.
They may have different numbers and metrics, but both are growing, so the bigger question may actually be whether the surge in activity seen on Thanksgiving will hold up for the rest of Cyber Week - which includes today's Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the weekend in between - and actually the rest of the days and weeks leading up to the New Year. Overall, Adobe predicted that Cyber Week will generate $34.8 billion in online spending this year, up 2.8% from a year ago, when the week generated $33.9 billion in sales.
Cyber Week 2021 was actually down 1.4% from 2020, so that's a turnaround.
As a comparison on these numbers, the National Retail Federation predicts sales growth of 6% to 8% over the holidays, while another analytics group, Digital Commerce 360, predicts 6% growth. 1% for the period.
Anyway, sales might not be fully sustained or even in the next few days. Adobe predicted that today's sales - the infamous Black Friday - should reach $9 billion, up just 1% from 2021 figures.
Adobe claims to have analyzed some 1 trillion visits to US retail sites, tracking sales of some 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories. Its analytics will include anonymized data from some of its customers: around 85% of the largest online retailers in the United States use it. So far, some $77.74 billion has been spent online since November 1.
The holiday shopping season is an important time to follow for several reasons. First, this is traditionally a retailer's most lucrative selling period, which can make or break all year round. (That's why recent earnings from Amazon, which provided a reduced sales forecast and warned of lower-than-expected holiday spending, sent its stock down nearly 20%.)
Because of this outsized importance, collectively, the e-commerce holiday numbers can serve as an indicator for the e-commerce market as a whole.
But if growth is what we're looking for, there are some indicators of rough water ahead. Adobe found that the first three weeks of November saw flat online sales of $64.59 billion, up just 0.1% from 2021.
The form of "holiday shopping" has changed dramatically with the rise of e-commerce. Online shopping has extended people's shopping days and hours - the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, once marked the "first day" of the holiday shopping season, but this
Analysts and e-commerce leaders are predicting a muted holiday online shopping season this year, with sales in the first three weeks of November essentially flat more year due to a weaker economy, inflation, and more people returning to shop in stores as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. But looking at Thanksgiving, the first big day of the holiday, the numbers seem to be stronger than expected. Adobe Analytics released figures showing that $5.29 billion was spent online on Thanksgiving Thursday. That's up 2.9% from a year ago, and ahead of the $5.1 billion originally forecast by Adobe for the day.
Mobile devices continue to play an increasing role in how people shop. About 55% of online sales were made on mobile devices yesterday, up 8.3% from a year ago.
"Mobile shopping has struggled to grow for many years as consumers found the experience lacking compared to the desktop," said Vivek Pandya, principal analyst, Adobe Digital Insights, in a press release. "This year's Thanksgiving has become an inflection point, where smartphones have driven real growth and underscores how much these experiences have improved."
Salesforce has more dynamic numbers: it notes from its calculations, based on 1.5 billion shoppers, that worldwide online sales rose 1% on Thanksgiving Day to 31 billion dollars, while in the United States in particular, they increased by 9% to reach 7.5 billion dollars. . Salesforce also said that 78% of sales traffic comes from mobile devices. The average order value, according to the report, was $105 worldwide and $120 for US sales.
They may have different numbers and metrics, but both are growing, so the bigger question may actually be whether the surge in activity seen on Thanksgiving will hold up for the rest of Cyber Week - which includes today's Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the weekend in between - and actually the rest of the days and weeks leading up to the New Year. Overall, Adobe predicted that Cyber Week will generate $34.8 billion in online spending this year, up 2.8% from a year ago, when the week generated $33.9 billion in sales.
Cyber Week 2021 was actually down 1.4% from 2020, so that's a turnaround.
As a comparison on these numbers, the National Retail Federation predicts sales growth of 6% to 8% over the holidays, while another analytics group, Digital Commerce 360, predicts 6% growth. 1% for the period.
Anyway, sales might not be fully sustained or even in the next few days. Adobe predicted that today's sales - the infamous Black Friday - should reach $9 billion, up just 1% from 2021 figures.
Adobe claims to have analyzed some 1 trillion visits to US retail sites, tracking sales of some 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories. Its analytics will include anonymized data from some of its customers: around 85% of the largest online retailers in the United States use it. So far, some $77.74 billion has been spent online since November 1.
The holiday shopping season is an important time to follow for several reasons. First, this is traditionally a retailer's most lucrative selling period, which can make or break all year round. (That's why recent earnings from Amazon, which provided a reduced sales forecast and warned of lower-than-expected holiday spending, sent its stock down nearly 20%.)
Because of this outsized importance, collectively, the e-commerce holiday numbers can serve as an indicator for the e-commerce market as a whole.
But if growth is what we're looking for, there are some indicators of rough water ahead. Adobe found that the first three weeks of November saw flat online sales of $64.59 billion, up just 0.1% from 2021.
The form of "holiday shopping" has changed dramatically with the rise of e-commerce. Online shopping has extended people's shopping days and hours - the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, once marked the "first day" of the holiday shopping season, but this
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