For brick-and-mortar retailers, there wasn't much to celebrate about Black Friday, but Cyber Monday wasn't very merry, either. Sales rose just 8% on what is hailed as the biggest online shopping day of the year, which is less than the 13% to 15% expected jump, according to IBM.
The impetus for the perceived shortfall was a flurry of online deals leading up to Thanksgiving, the same phenomenon that put a dent in Black Friday offline earnings.
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Nevertheless, the five-day "Cyber Week," which lasts from Thanksgiving Day to Monday, set a new record. Sales increased 12.6%, according to IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark.
Mobile, of course, was a big driver. Sales from smartphones and tablets rose 27.2% on Cyber Monday this year versus the same day in 2013.
“For the first time mobile devices drove more than half of Thanksgiving online traffic, a trend that continued throughout Cyber Week," said Jay Henderson, director, IBM Smarter Commerce, said. “As the holiday shopping season becomes less concentrated on a single day, retailers and marketers took advantage by making it easier for consumers to find the best deals on the go, whenever and wherever they chose to shop.”
The change prompted IBM to rename Cyber Monday as "Mobile Monday." Cyber Monday mobile traffic accounted for 41.2% of all online traffic, up 30.1% from last year. Some 22% of online sales on Monday were made on mobile devices, an increase of 27.6% year-over-year.
Despite Android's lead in market share, more traffic came from iOS than Android (28.7% versus 12.2%) and people spent more, on average, on iOS ($114.79 compared to $96.84.)