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Mobile spurs seasonal shopping as Cyber Monday undergoes a transition

Cyber Monday not as super as expected but shopping still spiked over last year's figures.

December 7, 2015

Pushing back Black Friday into the day before Thanksgiving and pushing back Thanksgiving shopping hours til later in the holiday event may have played a role in why Cyber Monday didn't prove to be as spectacular as some industry watchers predicted.

Online consumer activity on the big "Monday" seasonal retail day wasn't as busy as shoppers hit ecommerce destinations before Monday-hyped product sales came into play, according to an IBM survey noted in a Bloomberg report.

While sales increased compared to last year, with an 18-percent spike, that sales surge didn't come close to the consumer sales jump of 26 percent seen Saturday and Sunday, reveals the IBM data. Yet Cyber Monday can still boast about being the busiest online shopping day for the year with consumers spending $3 billion, according to insight from Adobe Systems.

The fact that retailers on and offline changed up traditional "sales" timeframes on Black Friday and Thanksgiving is having an impact on Cyber Monday

"Cyber Monday is becoming Cyber Week," Marlene Morris Towns, a Georgetown University marketing professor, told Bloomberg.

Yet things may change in a few years as more consumers are shopping online during Thanksgiving, which Adobe reports is now the fastest-growing ecommerce day, and that growth is being pushed by mobile devices. Adobe reports 37 percent of Thanksgiving shopping took place on smartphones and tablets, a whopping 29-percent increase from just a year ago. Mobile devices are increasingly being used on Cyber Monday as well, claims IBM, and were responsible for 15 percent of online sales — a 70 percent jump over 2014.

"It certainly is becoming more like Cyber November because people are getting a jump on their holiday shopping much earlier year over year," Joanna Lambert, vice president of global consumer product and engineering at PayPal, told Bloomberg.