This week we’ll be covering everything from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday and the way a person’s age impacts which device they use to shop online. 

Cyber Monday largest online sales day in history

Cyber Monday saw a record $3bn in sales, according to a new report by Adobe. 

Other key findings include:

  • Out-of-stock rates are at an all-time high, with 13 out of 100 product views showing an out-of-stock message (twice the normal rate). 
  • Top five selling electronics on Cyber Monday: 4K TVs, Microsoft Xbox, Apple iPad Mini, Apple iPad Air 2 and Sony PS4. 
  • Consumers saw an average discount of 20%. 
  • Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago and Los Angeles saw highest online sales growth between Thanksgiving and Sunday.
  • Mobile accounted for 49% of Cyber Monday shopping visits (38% smartphones, 11% tablets), resulting in 28% of online sales (17% smartphones, 11% tablets).
  • Large retailers (average sales revenue of $25m) saw 12% growth on Cyber Monday. Online sales for small retailers (average sales revenue of $100,000) increased by 6% YoY.

Cyber Monday ecommerce revenue up 16.2% on 2014

Cyber Monday 2015 was the biggest day in US online shopping ever, according to figures from Custora. 

Other key findings include: 

  • Over three quarters of all mobile orders (75.6%) were made on Apple devices, while only 24.2% happened on Android devices.
  • Email marketing was the primary channel driving online sales, accounting for 22.1% of transactions.
  • Social media only drove 1.5% of sales.

Mobile remains just ahead of desktop for holiday shopping

Mobile now makes up 51% of ecommerce site traffic, according to data from HookLogic. 

Other key findings include:

  • TV is the top search term across ecommerce sites, followed by ‘laptop’ and ‘Christmas trees’.
  • Home goods are also a popular item, with ‘bedding’, ‘tires’ and ‘curtains’ all falling into the top 10.

Black Friday sentiment mostly negative

82.8% of tweets about Black Friday in November were negative, according to a study by DataRank. 

2.8% of tweets were neutral while just 14.4% were positive. 

Black friday sentiment study

2015 online shopping traffic up 13%

Research by Monetate based on analysis of 27m online US shopping sessions found that one in every three dollars consumers spend is online.

Other key findings include: 

  • Heading into Black Friday, total online shopping traffic was up 19% with mobile up 95%.
  • Traffic from social sites saw big gains with Facebook up 160% and Twitter up 107%.
  • Mobile phone traffic increased 95%.

Record Thanksgiving for mobile

Online retailers broke the half-billion sales mark, gaining $100m (24%) more sales than last year during the same time period.

This is according to its analysis of 65m visits to 4,500 US retail sites between midnight and 11am on Thanksgiving. 

Other key findings include:


  • Smartphones and tablets drove over 50% of traffic to retail sites.
  • Smartphone share of mobile shopping grew 30% YoY (year on year).
  • The average product sold with 23% discount. 

Consumers more likely to purchase using a tablet than a smartphone

35% of people favor tablets when it comes to purchasing online, according to a study by the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau). 

Other key findings include:


  • 28% say they favor smartphones for online purchases.
  • 18-34 year olds are more likely to favor smartphones for retail activities than any other age group.
  • 35-54 year olds are more likely to use a tablet for their shopping needs.