Cyber Monday: Brisk sales, fewer discounts and plenty of out-of-stock problems
By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business
Cyber Monday sales amounted to $10.7 billion, which is higher than the underwhelming Black Friday tally but still $100 million less compared to last year.
That figure, released Tuesday from Adobe, is a 1.4% decrease from the record-breaking Cyber Monday total in 2020 when the online sales event raked in $10.8 billion. Despite the decrease, this year’s Cyber Monday was 2021’s biggest online shopping day.
“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 of Adobe Digital Insights, in a press release.
The usual suspects were the biggest spending categories, including electronics, appliances and toys. However, customers were greeted with smaller discounts than usual, with electronics marked down 12% compared to 27% last year and apparel discounted 15% compared to 20% in 2020.
The ongoing supply chain crisis also hampered sales. Adobe said that the “prevalence of out-of-stock messages” was up 169% compared to January 2020 and up a whopping 258% compared to the 2019 holiday shopping season.
Salesforce said it expects Cyber Monday sales to hit $11 billion, flat compared to last year.
“With the smoothing out of demand throughout the entire season, peak days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday have less of an impact than previous years,” remarked Rob Garf, vice president of retail at Salesforce, in a statement. “It’s been less about Cyber Week and more about Cyber November.”
In total, Adobe tallied that consumers have spent nearly $110 billion online between November 1 and November 29 — a 11.9% increase over last year. The firm forecasts the total holiday shopping season, which stretches between November 1 and December 31, will increase 10% this year and hit $207 billion.
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