Thanksgiving Day again breaks online sales record
US shoppers gave thanks ahead of Black Friday by spending $3.7 billion online on Turkey Day, according to Adobe.
Were you bargain shopping online Thursday to help fill the hours before the turkey came out of the oven?
You weren't alone, as online spending on Thanksgiving Day hit $3.7 billion in the US, breaking last year's record of $2.87 billion, according to Adobe Analytics. In 2016, that number was $1.3 billion.
That's just further evidence Black Friday is no longer the official kickoff of the holiday shopping season. It starts as early as Nov. 1 these days, with Thanksgiving Day stealing some of Black Friday's sales thunder with online promotions taking place as the brick-and-mortar stores are closed for the holiday.
Adobe tracks e-commerce transactions across 80 of the top 100 US retailers. Here are a few more interesting findings from Adobe's real-time holiday analytics report:
- Since Nov. 1, US consumers have spent $38 billion online.
- About 60 percent of revenue since Nov. 1 came from sales made on desktop devices, about 30 percent from purchases made via smartphones and about 10 percent from sales made via
tablets
.
- As of 7 a.m. PT, Black Friday online sales were already at $643 million, which is about on par with this point last year.
- The 5 top-selling items on Thanksgiving were
Nintendo Switch
, Beats headphones, Hot Wheels,
Red Dead Redemption 2
and Hatchibabies, interactive plush toys that hatch out of their speckled shells.