Cyber Monday 2015: Largest Online Sales Day Ever

Retailers should be celebrating right about now—Cyber Monday 2015 was the largest online sales day, ever. Online consumers spent a record $3.07 billion, 16 percent more than they did on Cyber Monday 2014. This follows astounding sales of $8.03 billion for the four-day Thanksgiving weekend, a 17 percent increase over last year, putting the grand Thanksgiving-through-Cyber Monday total up to $11.1 billion, a 17 percent increase year-over-year (YoY). And shoppers aren’t done yet—Adobe Digital Index predicts the first 18 days of December will each see $1 billion in sales.

Adobe predicted this year’s record-breaking Thanksgiving-through-Cyber Monday back in October, based on analysis of select, anonymous, aggregated data from 4,500 companies using Adobe Marketing Cloud.

This year’s retail frenzy created an all-time high in out-of-stock rates, with 14 out of 100 product views showing an out-of-stock message—over two times the normal rate. The most wanted, hardest-to-get items included: Shopkins figures, LEGO Disney Princess Elsa’s Sparkling Castle, Star Wars figures and video game bundles (PS4, Disney Infinity and Battlefront Bundles), Xbox One Fallout 4 and Halo Bundles, LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendars, and Fisher-Price Imaginext Supernova Battle Rover.

Adobe Digital Index also tracked a huge move to mobile. On Cyber Monday, 44 percent of shopping visits were made from smartphones or tablets, accounting for 26 percent of online sales—$799 million. Across platforms, the average Cyber Monday order value was $129, slightly less than the $137 people spent on Black Friday and the $162 they spent on Thanksgiving. Consumers scored big on Cyber Monday bargains, with an average discount of 21.5 percent.

Retailers aren’t the only ones sharing in the cheer—charitable organizations are seeing record-breaking contributions this Giving Tuesday. In the first few hours, online charitable donations were up 225 percent compared to the daily average. The generosity is expected to peak on New Year’s Eve at eight times the daily average for giving.

For a full rundown of the numbers, see CMO.com and the infographic. And to learn more about how the Adobe team crunches the numbers, read about the Adobe Digital Index.