Cyber Monday broke online spending records.
Dan Berthiaume|Senior Editor, Technology
Source: chainstoreage.com, November 2023

Once again, online shoppers spent more money on Cyber Monday than on any single day — ever.

Consumers spent a total of $12.4 billion on Cyber Monday (Nov. 27), according to final Adobe Analytics data, up nearly 10% from $11.3 billion on Cyber Monday 2022, which was the previous single biggest online spending day of all time. The 2023 take also  surpassed Adobe’s initial projection of $12 billion.

In the peak hour (10 to 11 p.m. ET), consumers spent $15.7 million every minute.

The apparel category showed the highest individual sales increase, with online sales growing 189% compared to an average day in October 2023. Other categories with strong demand included appliances (up 166%) and toys (up 140%), as well as furniture (up 129%), electronics (up 103%), jewelry (up 99%) and sporting goods (up 95%).

Buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) usage hit an all-time high this year, contributing $940 million in online spend, up a significant 42.5% from last year.  The number of items per order rose 11%, as shoppers used BNPL for increasingly larger carts.

Season to date (Nov. 1 to Nov. 27), BNPL has driven a total of $8.3 billion, up 17% year-over-year.  Adobe expects November 2023 to be the biggest month on record for this payment method.

Additional Cyber Monday trends noted by Adobe include:

  • Fifty-nine percent of online sales came through a smartphone (compared to 55% in 2022). Usage remained high across Cyber Week, with smartphones driving 51.8% of online sales (up from 49.9% in 2022).
  • Discounts peaked at 31% off listed price (vs. 25% in 2022). Discounts were strong across the majority of categories tracked by Adobe with computers at 24% (vs. 20%), televisions at 19% (vs. 17%), apparel at 23% (vs. 18%), sporting goods at 15% (vs. 10%), furniture at 21% (vs. 8%), and appliances at 18% (vs. 16%). Discounts for toys however, came in below 2022 levels at 27% (vs. 34%).
  • Usage of curbside pickup remained modest during Cyber Week. The fulfillment method was used in 12.7% of online orders from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday (for retailers that offer the service), down from 14.8% in the year prior. In the same time period, 80% of online orders leveraged standard shipping.

Holiday season off to a strong start 

According to Adobe, Cyber Week (the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday) brought in $38 billion overall, up 7.8% YoY. It was bolstered by record spending online during Thanksgiving ($5.6 billion, up 5.5% YoY), Black Friday ($9.8 billion, up 7.5% YoY) and over the Nov. 25-26 weekend ($10.3 billion, up 7.7% YoY).

Season-to-date (Nov. 1 to Nov. 27), consumers have now spent $109.3 billion online, up 7.3% YoY. Over half (60%) of this spend was driven by five categories including electronics ($21.7 billion), apparel ($19.2 billion), furniture ($14.7 billion), grocery ($6.8 billion) and toys ($3.1 billion). Adobe’s numbers are not adjusted for inflation, but if online inflation were factored in, there would be even higher growth in topline consumer spend.

Adobe now expects the full holiday season (Nov. 1 to Dec. 31) will hit $221.8 billion in online spend, growing 4.8% YoY.

“The 2023 holiday shopping season began with a lot of uncertainty, as consumers shifted their spending to services, while dealing with rising costs across different facets of their lives,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst, Adobe Digital Insights. “The record online spending across Cyber Week however, shows the impact that discounts can have on consumer demand, especially with quality products that drove a lot of impulse shopping.”

The analysis covers over one trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs, and 18 product categories — more than any other technology company or research organization. Adobe Analytics is part of Adobe Experience Cloud.