IBM: Cyber Monday online sales up 8.5%, iOS numbers more than quadruple
Android’s
Product availability from two retailers showing in Two Tap's universal
shopping cart
Above: Product availability from two retailers showing in Two Tap's
universal shopping cart
Image Credit: Two Tap
December 2, 2014 6:30 AM
Emil Protalinski
Cyber Monday, the day meant to encourage even more buying in the wake of the
U.S. Thanksgiving weekend, remained the busiest day this year for online
shopping over the five-day period. Online sales grew by 8.5 percent over
2013, according to the latest figures from IBM.
Mobile traffic accounted for 41.2 percent of all online traffic, up 30.1
percent over 2013. Furthermore, these visitors weren’t just browsing:
Mobile sales reached 22 percent of total Cyber Monday online sales, an
increase of 27.6 percent year-over-year.
As always in the U.S., iOS beat out Android in mobile shopping this holiday
season. iOS users averaged $114.79 per order compared to $96.84 for Android
users, a difference of 18.5 percent.
iOS traffic accounted for 28.7 percent of total online traffic, more than
double that of Android, which drove 12.2 percent of all online traffic. More
importantly, iOS sales accounted for 17.4 percent of total online sales,
more than four times that of Android, which drove 4.4 percent of all online
sales.
The discrepancy between Android and iOS for these numbers can often be
attributed to the fact that the latter has a larger market share in the U.S.
Yet that doesn’t explain why the difference is even larger for sales than
for traffic. The reason may come down to smartphones versus tablets and the
fact that iPads are even more popular than Android tablets in the U.S. when
compared to iPhones being more popular than Android smartphones.
IBM found smartphones drove 28.5 percent of all Cyber Monday online traffic,
more than double that of tablets, which accounted for 12.5 percent of all
traffic. That said, tablets drove 12.9 percent of online sales compared to 9
.1 percent for smartphones, a difference of 41.5 percent. Tablet users also
averaged $121.49 per order compared to $99.61 for smartphone users, a
difference of 22 percent.
All of this comes down to a big reminder that the desktop is far from dead.
PCs accounted for 58.6 percent of all online traffic and 78 percent of all
online sales. Consumers also spent more while shopping on their PCs, with an
average order value of $128.24 compared to $110.72 for mobile shoppers, a
difference of 15.8 percent.
IBM offered three other interesting findings:
New York City again claimed the top spot for Cyber Monday sales, followed by
Washington, D.C.; Atlanta, GA; Los Angeles, CA; and Chicago, IL.
Emails that are automatically triggered by a consumer’s action, like a
purchase receipt or cart abandonment, increased 48 percent year-over-year.
The median number of emails sent to consumers from retailers on Cyber Monday
was two, remaining the same in 2014 compared to 2013. Open and clickthrough
rates on Cyber Monday were 12.8 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively. More
than 46 percent of Cyber Monday emails were opened on mobile devices or
tablets, versus 52 percent on desktops.
Pinterest referrals drove an average of $97.78 per order compared to $123.44
for Facebook, a difference of 26.2 percent.
IBM’s data comes from its real-time Digital Analytics Benchmark, which
tracks approximately 800 U.S. retail websites. All the above figures are for
all of Cyber Monday; previous estimates were based on incomplete figures as
the day wasn’t over yet (though it’s worth noting Adobe saw a bigger jump
than IBM).
In related news, Walmart today announced that Cyber Monday 2014 was the
biggest online day in its history for orders. The retailer also revealed
that mobile accounted for approximately 70 percent of traffic to its website
between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.
Overall, Cyber Monday 2014 appears to have been a success, although its
growth was not as large as in previous years. This may be down to the fact
that Thanksgiving and Black Friday are eating away at Cyber Monday as
retailers increasingly offer not just in-store deals on those days but
online ones as well.
