Bumper Figures: Thanksgiving Day online sales touch $5.3 bn, Cyber Week expected to generate $34.8 billion

Thanksgiving Day online sales: Mobile phone devices were the most-coveted items as US went all-out to shop on the occassion of Thanksgiving Day this week. As per data from Adobe Analytics, US citizens spent approximately $5.3 billion in online shopping on Thanksgiving Day — a number that is higher by 2.8 per cent from last year.

According to Adobe Analytics, mobile devices sale saw a rise of 8.3 per cent from last year and constituted almost 55 per cent of all online shopping done on Thanksgiving Day.

Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, was quoted by IANS as saying that Thanksgiving this year has become an inflection point of sorts, where smartphones drove a majority of the growth in sales, and highlighted how much online buying experiences have improved.

In the month of October 2022 alone, consumers in the US spent $72.2 billion in online shopping — registering a 10.9 per cent rise than the September online shopping figures. 

As per Adobe Analytics' estimates, the Thanksgiving sales figures are at par with what consumers spent last year ($72.4 billion in October 2021), where early bird deals also drove an uptick in early holiday shopping.

As far as the deals are concerned, consumers were enticed by bargains in categories like electronics and toys, where discounts have been as high as 17 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively.

"Shoppers have also seen good deals for computers (10 per cent), with more modest discounts in categories like televisions (4 per cent), sporting goods (3 per cent) and furniture (2 per cent)," said the report.

Adobe expects the best deals to still happen around Cyber Week, and predicted that Cyber Week will generate $34.8 billion in online spend this year, up 2.8 per cent on a year ago.

"Despite inflationary pressures and the rising cost of borrowing, there was not a material decline this year in early holiday shopping," said Taylor Schreiner, senior director, Adobe Digital Insights.

"With over $72 billion spent online in October, e-commerce demand has shown itself to be durable and resilient, in spite of a challenging macroeconomic environment," Schreiner added.