Just over a week ago, Americans celebrated and shopped for online savings on a day that has come to be known as Cyber Monday.
The origination of the term “Cyber Monday” is credited to a Nov. 28, 2005 press release from a company called Shop.com, with Shop.com chairman Scott Silverman saying it stemmed from 2004 research that showed the Monday after Thanksgiving ranked as “one of the biggest online shopping days of the year.”
In the eight years since, Cyber Monday has continued to grow in popularity and power, with comScore reporting that on Cyber Monday of 2010, consumers spent some $1.028 billion online. That figure was a record…until Cyber Monday of 2011, when online consumer spending tallied $1.25 billion – making it “the heaviest U.S. online spending day in history.”
But as more and more data also continues to mount, it’s become increasingly clear that online shopping is becoming more and more commonplace – not just on Cyber Monday, but seven days a week, each and every week of the year.
This is especially true during the Holiday season, when Americans traditionally take time to think about – and spend more money on – people other than themselves.
Forrester Research forecasts $78.7 billion in U.S. online sales this holiday season – including mobile and tablet sales – an increase of 15% compared to the $68.4 billion racked up in 2012 online holiday sales. This year, a projected 167 million shoppers will turn online for their holiday shopping, spending an average of $472 per person.
According to a recent report from eMarketer, this uptick in online spending is being driven, in large part, by a reminder that is arguably even more pervasive and powerful than “Holiday Cheer”:
A strong surge in online advertising and digital marketing on the part of brands and businesses. Especially retailers.
The eMarketer report claims that U.S. retailers will spend 15.7% more this year on digital advertising, bringing the total online advertising spend to $9.5 billion. This surge contributes to comScore’s and Forrester Research‘s separate estimates for ecommerce growth in 2013, and a good portion of all U.S. retail ecommerce sales are expected to occur in the closing months of the year – with 23.5% of all those sales coming in November and December. The total U.S. ecommerce spend with retailers in 2013 is expected to reach $262.3 billion, a 16.4% increase in online consumer retailer spend from 2012.
As ecommerce becomes more and more commonplace, and brands and agencies pour more and more resources into online advertising and marketing, more and more Mondays will look like Cyber Mondays, according to Forrester. The research firm forecasts that by 2017, U.S. online retail sales will hit a staggering $370 billion.
The research by eMarketer also suggests that much of the incremental digital advertising growth from retailers will go toward mobile advertising, especially search, as well as select mobile display media with large audiences, and select targeting platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
According to comScore estimates, mobile commerce sales will reach $7.1 billion for the November and December Holiday season – or some 13% of total ecommerce/digital commerce during the Holidays.
But much of this spending is also coming via a manner that is looking more and more Old School with each passing day:
Desktop computers.
Per comScore, total online holiday spending via desktop computers is expected to exceed $48 billion during the final two months of 2013. Even though tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices have grown wildly in popularity, availability and affordability since 2012, this $48.1 billion estimate represents a rise of some 14% from the desktop ecommerce spending figures from 2012, when more people spent more time on desktops than they do today.
What do YOU think about all these mind-numbing numbers, fantastic figures, and amazing estimates around ecommerce and mobile commerce?
Do YOU currently make many purchases online? If so, what device do you tend to use to shop online?
Will you go online to purchase any super-cool, cutting-edge gifts like wearable tech this Holiday season? Or perhaps a shiny new XBox ONE?
And if you’re a brand, business or agency, have you seen a strong surge in online activity when it comes to your customers? Yourselves?
Let us know in the comments section below this blog. We want to hear from YOU on this one.
Oh and have some very Happy Holidays. Online and off!
