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Amazon’s Cyber Monday Breaks Records for 2018

This year’s Cyber Monday became the single biggest online shopping day in the history of United States e-commerce.
 
According to projections from Adobe Analytics, the 2018 red-letter day surged to a new high of $7.9 billion spent online an increase of 19.3 percent from a year ago, eclipsing last year’s Black Friday ($6.22 billion) and Thanksgiving day ($3.3 billion).
 

Spending on smartphones continued to climb as brick-and-mortar retail traffic continued to fall. Mobile transactions on mobile devices were up 55.6 percent over last year to reach $2.2 billion in sales, said Adobe, which tracks sales data from 80 of the top 100 internet retailers in the U.S., including Amazon and Walmart. More than half of shoppers’ visits to retailers’ websites Cyber Monday came from smartphones, with people making greater use of shipping options like buy online, pick up in store. So-called click-and-collect orders were up 65 percent this Cyber Monday from last year, Adobe said.

 

Amazon said it had a “record-breaking” holiday weekend for sales marking and said Cyber Monday marked the biggest shopping day in its history, based on the number of items sold, though it didn’t provide specific sales numbers beyond that. The company said shoppers bought more than 18 million toys and more than 13 million fashion items from Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.

Retailers were in a race to capitalize on the benefit of both the online and brick-and-mortar worlds. Amazon and other so-called digital native brands expanded their physical footprints—with Amazon partnering with retailers like Kohl’s to process returns. Physical retailers from Walmart to Macy’s doubed down on their e-commerce spending and using their store fleet for such services as online ordering for store or curbside pickup.

On  the dark side, Amazon forecast a disappointing fourth-quarter profit after its Q3 shipping costs rose 22% to $6.6 billion, almost double its operating income. Walmart reported a narrower Q3 gross margin rate, hurt in part by higher transportation expenses and the increasing mix of e-commerce growth. Higher online fulfillment and other supply chain costs also hurt Target’s Q3 margin. [24×7]