Key Points
- U.S. shoppers spent a record $14.25 billion online on Cyber Monday. Total spending over the five-day “Cyber Week” reached $44.2 billion.
- Aggressive, persistent discounts were the main driver of the sales surge.
- “Buy now, pay later” services hit an all-time high, funding over $1 billion in Cyber Monday sales.
- The use of AI-powered shopping tools to find deals has increased significantly from last year.
American shoppers shattered online spending records over the long holiday weekend, dropping a massive $14.25 billion on Cyber Monday alone. According to a new report from Adobe Analytics, total online sales for the five-day “Cyber Week” period, from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, hit an impressive $44.2 billion. This spending spree on everything from gadgets to household goods easily surpassed early holiday forecasts.
The driving force behind the huge numbers was aggressive discounting. Retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Target rolled out deals early and kept them going, luring in both big spenders and budget-conscious families.
According to Vivek Pandya at Adobe, these persistent deals pushed consumers to shop earlier, blurring the lines between the traditional shopping days. “Black Friday now challenges the dominance of Cyber Monday,” he noted, after shoppers spent a record $11.8 billion on that day.
This year also saw shoppers embrace new tools to find the best prices. The use of AI-powered services, such as chatbots, to compare products skyrocketed, with AI-related traffic to retail sites jumping by more than 670% on Cyber Monday.
At the same time, many shoppers stretched their budgets using “buy now, pay later” services. These payment plans hit an all-time high on Monday, accounting for over $1.03 billion in online spending as consumers looked for ways to manage their holiday expenses.
Despite record spending and the willingness to use short-term financing, analysts noted that consumers remained savvy. They hunted for the best deals and thought carefully about their purchases, avoiding impulse buys in a season defined by big discounts.
