US holiday season records smashed as mobile rises

US shoppers spent a record $108.2 billion online during the 2017 holiday season, up 14.7% compared with 2016, according to Adobe Analytics.

Sales via mobile devices hit $35.9 billion, making up 33.1% of all online sales and 28% higher than 2016, according to Adobe Analytics. “We think that online shopping bested predictions in part because of a strong holiday season in general,” says Siddharth Kulkarni, Managing Analyst with Adobe Digital Insights, which tracks 80% of online spending for the 100 largest US retail websites. “Industry and government reports cite strong consumer sentiment, low unemployment, and a strong stock market as driving strong holiday season spending.”

Revenue between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday clocked in at $19.6 billion, a 15.2% YOY increase, with sales on Black Friday at $5 billion and on Cyber Monday at $6.6 billion. “One reason Thanksgiving saw some of the strongest online growth may be that several prominent retailers like REI closed their physical stores on Thanksgiving and urged consumers to do their shopping online that day,” says Kulkarni.

More than $7 billion was spent on tablets and smartphones between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. And for the first time, mobile sales on Cyber Monday were over $2 billion. “We expect that number will only continue to grow as retailers become better at converting smartphone traffic,” Kulkarni comments.