We covered a lot in this year’s Cyber 5 edition of Strategy Insights. And rightfully so. These are the busiest shopping days of the year — online and offline.
Digital Commerce 360 editors and researchers found out how much consumers spent, where, on which days, and how they paid. We also learned how online retailers approached the shopping-centric days, and which ones offered promotions.
Understanding these spending (and discounting) habits is critical for online retailers, especially if they want to learn what went right — and wrong — before the next busy shopping season comes around.
Here’s an overview of some of our best Cyber 5 coverage this year — just a sampling of examples you’ll find in the rest of this report. Download the entire December 2023 Cyber 5 edition of Strategy Insights here.
The Cyber 5 edition of Strategy Insights covers a lot, including how online retailers capitalized on the holiday season rush in November.
1) Cyber 5 online sales grow 7.8%
We found out just how big this year’s key Thanksgiving-week shopping days were. Unsurprisingly, Cyber Monday is still the largest online sales day in the U.S., with web sales reaching $12.4 billion in 2023, according to Adobe Analytics data. Cyber Monday 2023 online sales grew 9.6% over 2022’s $11.3 billion.
For perspective, the next-busiest online shopping day (Black Friday) didn’t crack $10 billion. This year, Black Friday online sales grew 7.5% to $9.8 billion.
2) Online retailers share how Black Friday and Cyber Monday really went
Despite record spending overall, retailers that Digital Commerce 360 spoke with reported mixed results. For many retailers, 2023 has been about coping with budget-conscious consumers who are choosier about how to spend their discretionary income.
Digital Commerce 360 heard from Adore Me, Meble Furniture, Buy Buy Baby, and other retailers on how they performed during the Cyber 5, and how those results will impact the rest of the holiday season.
3) 92% of top online retailers offer Cyber Monday promotions
We already know Cyber Monday is meant to be the day for online shopping promotions, and online retailers affirmed that. Of the 100 online retailers we paneled, 92 offered some kind of promotion on Cyber Monday. And of those 92 retailers, 84.8% specifically made those promotions about Cyber Monday.
3.5) DNVBs stay steady with Cyber Monday promotions
The trends differed among digitally native vertical brands, though. According to Digital Commerce 360 research, 85.0% of the 80 DNVBs in the Top 1000 ran promotions on Cyber Monday. While many brands were offering discounts, it’s a smaller share than the Top 1000 overall. Just 63% of DNVBs that offered promotions tied deals to the holidays, and many didn’t bother with decorating their websites.
4) Holiday online traffic data shows who shopped for what
With all these deals, online retailers enticed shoppers to browse the web for holiday gifts. Early results showed notable sales spikes in apparel, appliances, toys, and elsewhere. Data Digital Commerce 360 analyzed gives insights into who was doing holiday shopping during the Cyber 5, broken down by age and gender across different merchandise categories.
5) Amazon gains Cyber 5 traffic share from other top retailers
Ecommerce industry observers shouldn’t be surprised to hear that Amazon had the largest share of web traffic during the Cyber 5. And it wasn’t close. Amazon accounted for more than a quarter of all web traffic to Top 1000 retailers from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday.
6) Consumers embrace buy now, pay later during Cyber 5
BNPL usage reached record levels on Cyber Monday, accounting for $940 million of the total $12.4 billion spent, according to Adobe. That’s a 42.5% increase year over year, on top of 85% it grew on Cyber Monday 2022. And with that increase in usage came changing habits.
7) Online holiday shoppers boost record overall Cyber 5 results
Holiday shoppers showed up in historic numbers for online and in-store purchases over the Cyber 5, according to the annual survey released by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics. That surpassed NRF’s expectations of 182 million shoppers by more than 18 million as more shoppers took to the web this year. Online was the top destination for Cyber 5 shoppers, NRF found.
— Abbas Haleem, Associate Editor, Digital Commerce 360
Additional reporting from Digital Commerce 360 editors Mary Meisenzahl, Brian Warmoth, Mark Brohan and James Risley.
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