The Biggest Shopping Festival of The Year – Cyber Monday or Black Friday?
By Space Coast Daily // December 15, 2022
According to Adobe Analytics, Black Friday sales topped $9 billion for the first time, with $9.12 billion in online sales. And consumers spent $11.3 billion online on Cyber Monday, up 5.8% from last year.
On Cyber Monday this year, consumers spent $12.8 million per minute during the peak hours of 8 to 9 p.m. Pacific time. Driven by record online spending during Black Friday ($9.12 billion, up 2.3% year over year) and Thanksgiving ($5.29 billion, up 2.9% year over year), total consumer spending during the entire Cyber Week period was $35.3 billion, up 4% year over year, reflecting deep consumer discounts across numerous categories.
Cyber Monday is relatively new, as it emerged in 2005. The term was coined after a surge in online revenue and traffic on the Monday after Thanksgiving. Sales have increased every year since Cyber Monday began.
“It has surpassed Black Friday as the biggest shopping day of the season,” said Patrick Brown, Adobe’s vice president of marketing and insights. The data shows that Cyber Monday sales have surpassed Black Friday sales since at least 2014.
The origin story of Cyber Monday shows how savvy marketing helped turn a hiccup in online sales data into a shopping event that now brings in billions of dollars in sales.
In 2002, online shopping required high-speed Internet access, a service that less than 10% of the U.S. population had at the time. Many consumers delayed their first online holiday shopping until they got to work on Monday, leading to an increase in online sales at top online retailers at the time, such as Amazon and eBay.
The phenomenon caught the attention of the media that year, initially calling the spike “Black Monday,” a reference to Black Friday and its sales, until 2005, when it was dubbed “Cyber Monday” by the National Retail Federation.
Cyber Monday saw a surge in sales in 2008 and 2009 as the Great Recession prompted consumers to seek more deals on their holiday shopping. In 2010, it surpassed Black Friday as the biggest holiday shopping day by sales, according to Insider Intelligence.
In five years, it has gone from obscurity to the biggest shopping day of the holiday season. Cyber Monday retains that distinction to this day, even though it attracts fewer shoppers than Black Friday.
In 2022, Black Friday sales growth is expected to be slower than in previous years. That’s one of the reasons Cyber Monday could surpass Black Friday. Online sales increased on Black Friday, but many people remained focused on in-store shopping.
On Cyber Monday, however, shoppers were doing their shopping online. According to a well-known U.S. coupon website CouponBirds, the number of people searching for Amazon coupons on Cyber Monday was 12.9% higher than Black Friday, and coupon search for JCPenney Coupons on Cyber Monday was 9.81% higher.
The difference between Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals isn’t significant, but certain tech products may be an exception. Cyber Monday is often associated with tech deals, and electronics will still see deeper discounts during the virtual retail holiday.
For many items, if you see a good deal now, don’t wait to buy. But if you’re buying electronics, it may be worth the wait.
Many shoppers wait until Cyber Monday to buy products, in part for fear of missing out on deals altogether, and some online retailers are likely to offer their biggest online discounts on products on Black Friday and then remain discounted but reduce them the weekend before Cyber Monday, a move that could raise consumer concerns about deals disappearing.
Toys, video games and electronics were the top-selling categories of consumer spending on Cyber Monday, according to Adobe Analytics.
The record spending was driven by toys, with online sales up 684% compared to an average day in October 2022, as well as perennial favorites such as electronics (up 391%) and computers (up 372%).
Other categories with strong demand include sporting goods (up 466%), appliances (up 458%), books (up 439%) and jewelry (up 410).
Cyber Monday’s peak sales offer shoppers 34% and 20% off, respectively. These discounts are especially important for Americans who are strapped by rising costs.
With prices 7.7% higher than last year, inflation has many consumers looking for ways to keep their budgets intact this holiday season.
Affected by the economic downturn and rising interest rates, consumers will make more cautious shopping decisions and have higher requirements for brands, product value and quality.
But the holiday shopping season is off to a good start, with underlying consumer demand still growing and inflation not having much of an adverse effect on this year’s shopping season.
