Holiday shoppers this year preferred to do their purchasing in their pajamas from the couch rather than facing the Thanksgiving and Black Friday crowds.
Though millions of people hit the stores during Thanksgiving weekend, the overall number of in-store shoppers decreased 5.2% this year over last, according to the National Retail Federation’s Thanksgiving Weekend Spending Survey.
During the same time of Thursday through Sunday, online shopping saw a 17% increase over last year, according to a study by IBM.
Not only were online sales up, but there were also some changes in how people were doing their online shopping. More than 50% of web traffic came from mobile devices, a 25% increase over last year. Almost 30% of sales came from mobile devices.
Though people were browsing sales on their smartphones more than tablets, they were slightly more likely to make the actual purchase from a tablet rather than a smartphone.
And while mobile traffic and sales are increasing, desktop PCs still made up almost 50% of online traffic and 71% of online sales, according to IBM’s data. Desktop shoppers also spent more, averaging $135.55 compared to the mobile average spend of $116.02.
The National Retail Foundation’s survey of over 4,600 people showed that the average online shopper spent $159.55 online over the long holiday weekend. The shoppers planned to spend about 42% of their overall shopping budget on online purchases.
IBM’s data showed that New York City residents spent the most money online over the holiday weekend, followed by Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Los Angeles and Chicago.
None of these online shopping reports including Cyber Monday data, meaning more online spending is likely going to occur this week.
Early reports from IBM show that as of noon on Cyber Monday, online sales had a 9.2% increase over last year.
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