Cyber Monday has only existed for a the better part of a decade, but it is already beginning to rival Black Friday. Bloomberg reports that Cyber Monday sales have jumped 19% over last year, setting December 2nd up to be “the biggest online shopping day of 2013.” Mobile traffic now accounts for 30% of all participating retailers’ web traffic as well. According to PayPal, 16% of all purchases made using the popular online payment service were from mobile devices. IBM also chimed in with some interesting statistics: Customers generally prefer to use smartphones when browsing for things to buy but prefer to use tablets when it comes time to make the actual purchase.
With Black Friday weekend sales falling short of the mark, it was important for many retailers that Cyber Monday pick up the slack. It appears to have done exactly that.
“Cyber Monday has been the single biggest shopping day of the year for U.S. retailers for a number of years now,” said Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru. “This year should be no different, especially given the compressed timeframe for holiday shopping and the trend toward more online shopping in general.”
