By: Ralph Dangelmaier, BlueSnap
Five Fun Facts about Cyber Five 2013 (the five consecutive online shopping days from Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday):
- New Yorkers spent the most online this year on Cyber Monday, followed by residents of Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.
- iPads were the hottest commodity this year; roughly 40 percent of Black Friday iPad purchases could be attributed to existing Android smartphone users.
- Xbox One (31 percent) and Xbox 360 (30 percent) took top market shares for the video games and consoles category.
- Facebook drove 64 percent of the 2 percent of online sales referred by social media sites.
- Online sales to international customers also saw strong boosts this year.
And - the most popular tweet on Cyber Monday makes you believe the power of Justin Bieber (a.k.a. The Bieb):
In 2013, the holiday shopping season culminated to over $23 billion spent online, marking an 8 percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. Incredible! Black Friday 2013 (November 29) saw $1.198 billion in desktop online sales, making it the season's first billion-dollar day. The recent trend of kick-starting holiday shopping by opening stores on Thanksgiving Day seems to be having a spillover effect on the online channel.
Thanksgiving is now the fastest-growing shopping day over the past five years - $1.062 billion to be exact. To avoid the crowds, in combination with mobile access, more Americans opted for couch commerce following their Thanksgiving Day festivities.
Sixty-six million Americans visited online retail sites on Black Friday using a desktop computer, representing an increase of 16 percent versus year ago. Amazon once again ranked as the most visited online retail site on Black Friday, followed by eBay, Walmart, Best Buy and Target.
Online shoppers forked out a record-breaking $2.29 billion on Cyber Monday alone. There are estimates that holiday online sales will reach $81 billion this year in total, up 12.5 percent from 2012.
Walmart and Target's early deals didn't hamper Cyber Monday sales, as millions of Americans logged on to ecommerce sites Monday to take advantage of deals ranging from free shipping to hundreds of dollars off electronics to half-price clothing. Mobile devices accounted for more than 29 percent of all online traffic.
*Results and stats from Adobe, Borderfree, ComScore, IBM Benchmark and InfoScout.
About the Author: Ralph Dangelmaier is the CEO of BlueSnap, leading the charge to establish BlueSnap as the payments leader in ecommerce.