The final figures are in for Cyber Monday, and they're nothing short of impressive. According to Adobe, US consumers spent a record-breaking $13.3 billion online on Monday, marking a 7.3% increase from 2023. This makes Cyber Monday the biggest online shopping day of all time, with sales surpassing those of Black Friday and Thanksgiving.

Salesforce, another leading tracker of online sales, reported slightly more modest figures, with global sales reaching $49.7 billion and US sales totaling $12.8 billion. However, both firms agree that Cyber Monday was a major success, with sales driven by deep discounts of up to 40% on average for some items.

The strong sales figures are a promising sign for the overall holiday shopping season, which is expected to be a critical period for retailers. Adobe is tracking the full holiday season to total $240.8 billion in the US, up 8.4% from 2023. Salesforce's global figures for the week were $314.9 billion, up 6% versus 2023, with $76 billion in the US, up 7%.

According to Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, "Early discounts were strong enough that many consumers felt comfortable hitting the buy button earlier on during Cyber Week, with Cyber Monday becoming 'last call' for shoppers to take advantage of big holiday deals." This suggests that retailers' strategies of offering deep discounts early on in the holiday season may be paying off.

It's worth noting that the methodologies used by Adobe and Salesforce differ, which may account for some of the discrepancies in their figures. Adobe's data is based on 1 trillion visits tracked to US retail sites, covering some 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories. Salesforce, on the other hand, captures shopping data from 1.5 billion consumers across its customers and other data feeds in its Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Service Cloud.

Some other interesting trends emerged from the data. Electronics had the biggest discounts yesterday in the US, with average markdowns of around 30.1%. Toys and consumer electronics continue to be the most popular category, while makeup and apparel had the biggest average markdowns globally, at 40% and 39%, respectively.

Mobile shopping accounted for 57% of all sales, working out to $7.6 billion in spend. This marks a significant increase from last year, with mobile shopping growth outpacing overall online shopping growth. Buy now, pay later (BNPL) schemes also drove nearly $1 billion in spend, a high for the payment method.

Despite concerns about inflation, Adobe's price index indicates that prices have been falling for the last 26 months, with a 2.9% decrease as of October 2024 compared to a year before. This suggests that discounts, rather than inflation, are driving people to spend at a time when they may be feeling less secure economically.

Overall, the strong sales figures for Cyber Monday are a promising sign for retailers and a testament to the power of online shopping. As the holiday season continues, it will be interesting to see how these trends play out and what other insights emerge from the data.