KUALA LUMPUR, 14 January 2020 – Adobe’s 2019 Holiday Recap report has found that people spent $142.5 billion online during the 2019 holiday season (November through December), up 13.1% year-over-year, and the primary growth driver was smartphones, which drove 84% of the online sales growth during the period.
Smartphones, the study found, accounted for 36% of online revenue (up 21% YoY) and also accounted for 58% of traffic to retail sites November through December (up 14% YoY).
“Smartphones drove tremendous growth in online sales this holiday season, and we expect mobile commerce to continue to grow as experiences improve,” said Jason Woosley, VP of commerce at Adobe.
“Other growth drivers for the 2019 holidays include the 5-day period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday hitting record heights, BOPIS, as well as an earlier start to holiday-inspired deals from retailers.”
Cyber Weekend—Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday—raked in 20% of overall holiday online sales, up 17.7% YoY.
Buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) revenue was up 35% on average for the season. BOPIS hit a peak in the seven days leading up to Christmas, when revenue increased 55% as consumers undoubtedly did some last-minute online shopping.
Retailers large and small saw increases in sales during the holiday season, although the giants saw more growth. Large retailers grew their online sales by over 65% on average, and smaller ones grew online sales by 35%. Still, online revenue growth during the holidays continues to outpace overall retail growth (13.1% online vs. 4.0% overall).
Consumers collectively spent $2.3 billion per day (on average) across the season. In fact, every day exceeded $1 billion in online sales except for Christmas Eve. This holiday season also had 29 $2 billion days (up from 26 in 2018).
However, completing the buying process on smartphones still lags compared to desktop, (3.0 vs. 5.9 checkouts per 100 visits), and smartphones have higher cart abandonment rates as well (50% vs. 33%).
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