Cyber Monday Shatters Records: $12.4 Billion in Sales and Counting!

Despite dwindling pandemic-era savings and high interest rates, US consumers showcased their unwavering resilience by spending a record-breaking $12.4 billion on Cyber Monday.

Spending was up 9.6% from a year ago, making it the biggest online shopping day ever, according to data aggregator Adobe Inc. Adobe had earlier raised its forecast for online spending for the day based on higher-than-expected spending on Black Friday and the popularity of buy-now-pay-later deals, which allow shoppers to stretch their budgets with credit.

Buy-now-pay-later usage also hit a record high on Cyber Monday, with $940 million in online spending, up 42.5% year-over-year, according to Adobe. The company also said that consumers used such credit arrangements for increasingly large purchases.

“The 2023 Christmas shopping season began with great uncertainty as consumers shifted their spending to services while facing rising costs in various areas of their lives,” said Vivek Pandya, principal analyst at Adobe Digital Insights. “However, record online spending during Cyber Week demonstrates the impact of discounts on consumer demand.”

Cyber Week – the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday – brought in a total of $38 billion, up 7.8% from last year. Black Friday beat forecasts to $9.8 billion, up 7.5% year-over-year. Thanksgiving spending of $5.6 billion was up 5.5%, Adobe said. Consumers have spent 109.3 billion dollars online, which is 7.3% more than in 2022. In this period from November 1 to November 27.

The top-selling products were Hot Wheels, the Xbox Series X game console, televisions and small kitchen appliances, according to Adobe, which tracks a trillion visits to retail websites and tracks sales of more than 100 million products.

Big sale days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday have gradually lost their weight as shoppers spread their spending over a longer period. Still, as inflation-stricken consumers watch their budgets, retailers are increasingly relying on these events to see what products shoppers are snapping up — and then target them with deeper discounts as the clock ticks down to Christmas.