Cyber Monday sales at record as brick-and-mortar sales dip

Cyber Monday was the largest online sales day in U.S. history, according to several firms tracking sales.

Online sales hit $3.07 billion, an increase of 16 percent over 2014, according to one firm, Adobe Digital Index.

Meanwhile, brick-and-mortar sales fell by more than 10 percent from a year earlier during the four-day weekend, including Thanksgiving and Black Friday, according to ShopperTrak.

Online sales for large retailers, with average revenue of $25 million, grew 15 percent on Cyber Monday compared with last year, while small retailers, with average revenue of $100,000, increased by 6 percent, according to data released Monday by Adobe Digital Index, of San Jose, California.

Retailers with physical and online stores had the strongest growth, at 18 percent, making Cyber Monday more than an online-only retailer day, Adobe found.

“Cyber Monday has pushed online spending to a new high,” Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst at Adobe Digital Index, said in a statement Monday night. “Online traffic was so astronomical that several retailers experienced temporary outages and slow checkouts, but that didn’t stall consumer spending.”

Separately, IBM Commerce found that Cyber Monday sales rose 17.8 percent over the same day in 2014. The average order was $123.43, down a slight 0.6 percent from 2014. Mobile sales accounted for 27.6 percent of all online sales, an increase of 25.7 percent over last year, IBM found.

Email marketing drove online sales

Email marketing was the primary driver of online sales, accounting for 22.1 percent of transactions, according to Custora E-Commerce Pulse, which tracks more than 200 U.S. Internet retailers. Social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, drove 1.5 percent of sales.

While Cyber Monday broke records, in-store retail sales declined on Black Friday weekend. From Thanksgiving to Sunday, brick-and-mortar shoppers spent a projected $20.43 billion, an estimated 10.4 percent decrease from 2014, according to ShopperTrak, a Chicago-based provider of shopper analytics.

“Clearly, we have entered a new generation of shopping,” said Marshal Cohen, retail analyst with the Port Washington-based NPD Group. “Retailers were trying to make their online business more attractive, but they got it at the expense of their in-store business.”

Thanksgiving Day grossed $1.76 billion, a 12.5 percent dip compared with last year, while Black Friday made $10.21 billion in sales, an 11.9 percent decrease, ShopperTrak found.

Still hope for in-store sales

“It’s important to view the decrease in context. There are several contributing factors, including fewer available store hours on Thanksgiving Day and a later Hanukkah that is anticipated to push sales into December,” ShopperTrak founder Bill Martin said in a statement Tuesday. The company still maintains its forecast of a 2.4 percent increase in sales for in-store retailers this holiday season. “Most importantly, the success of the holiday season doesn’t hinge on the performance of a single day.”

Counting the five days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, online sales are expected to reach $11 billion, a 15 percent increase from last year, according to Adobe. The first 18 days in December are expected to generate $1 billion in sales a day.

But the decline in retail stores during Black Friday weekend doesn’t indicate that consumers aren’t shopping in stores, Cohen said. Instead, consumers have been shopping since Nov. 1 because retailers have offered “aggressive” discounts earlier, Cohen said.

“Consumers are out there buying, but they are just buying in a time frame that is not being reported on,” Cohen said. “When you look at all of November, the retail stores did just fine. November will do better than last year.”