Consumers have already spent about $79.7 billion online this holiday season, according to Adobe. The early holiday spending is up about 7.5% from last year’s pace.
Adobe highlighted that the strong spending so far has been driven in part by early deals. For the first 23 days of the season, discounts for electronics peaked at 12% but are expected to jump to 29% on Cyber Monday. In other categories, Cyber Monday is set to have the biggest discounts for apparel at 25% (vs. 12.2% in the first 23 days of the season) and computers at 23% (vs. 12.9%). Meanwhile, Black Friday is set to have the biggest discounts for televisions at 23% (vs. 11.1% for the early part of the holiday season). Toys and appliances are also forecast to see big discounts on Black Friday.
The data from Adobe indicated that shoppers are also trading up to higher-ticket items, taking advantage of deals to get greater value. Categories such as electronics have seen their share of units sold for the most expensive goods increase by more than 30%. Other categories where consumers are trading up include sporting goods (up 36%), appliances (up 24%), personal care products (up 20%), and tools/home improvement (up 17%). Generative AI is also a major holiday shopping factor. In the first 23 days of the season, AI traffic rose by 830% year-over-year. The generative AI tools were noted to have been used most for categories including toys, video games, appliances, personal care products, and electronics. Adobe also observed that shoppers who landed on a U.S. retail site from an AI service were30X more likely to buy something. Additionally, in Adobe’s survey, 32% of respondents reported having used AI to aid in their online shopping journeys, and nearly half (48%) said they have used or plan to use AI specifically for holiday shopping.
Cyber Week is expected to drive 17.2% of overall spending and be up 6.3% year-over-year. Cyber Monday is anticipated to remain the biggest online shopping day of the season at a projected $14.2 billion in sales.
Thomas Barwick