Cyber Monday Biggest Ever Day for Online Shopping, says IBM

Christmas Shopping PhoneThis years Cyber Monday, 2 December, was the biggest online shopping day in history, according to data from IBM, with sales up 20.6 per cent year-on-year.

This growth was led by mobile, which accounted for 17 per cent of online sales, an increase of 55.4 per cent on last year, and 31.7 per cent of traffic, up 45 per cent.

While smartphones accounted for a bigger share of traffic (19.7 per cent, versus 11.5 percent), tablets drove over twice as many sales (11.7 per cent, versus 5.5 per cent), with a bigger average basket size to boot ($126.30 per order, versus $106.49).

While Cyber Monday was a bigger day for online retail than Black Friday overall, on mobile traffic was down 20 per cent and sales down 21 per cent, as shoppers went back to work and started shopping on their PCs.

Retailers made the most of the extended shopping weekend – from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday – sending 77 per cent more push notifications than the daily average from the past  two months, while average daily installations of retail apps grew by 29 per cent.