Cyber Week is officially in the books, and brands and retailers have a lot to be grateful for this year. After a full year of planning, building, and testing, they were rewarded with enthusiastic Cyber Week shoppers. Although this season presented unique challenges, shoppers did not disappoint. So what happened on this historically marquee digital shopping day? Below are the top shopper holiday trends that manifested during Cyber Monday 2019.
Holiday insight #1: Cyber Monday digital sales are strong, but no match for Black Friday
Cyber Monday capped off a successful Cyber Week with $8B in U.S. digital sales, representing a growth rate of 11% since last year. Globally, digital revenue grew by 13% to $30B. This represents very healthy growth — and share — across Cyber Week.
Holiday insight #2: Shopping spreads out as Cyber Weekend influence continues to grow
Shoppers continued to turn to digital storefronts over the weekend. Digital revenue grew an average of 15% in the U.S. and 12% globally on Saturday and Sunday as purchases spread out across the weekend. Cyber Week overall saw digital revenue grow by 13% in the U.S. and 15% globally over last year. As mobile provides the modern convenience of anywhere, anytime shopping, consumers can now choose when and how they shop. In the U.S., Cyber Monday is still the top digital shopping day, capturing 25% of the week’s digital revenue and registering record-breaking sales.
Holiday insight #3: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the key to smarter shopping
As mobile devices dominated order share this Cyber Week (55%), artificial intelligence (AI) provided the right product at the right place at the right time on small screens. Despite being a time for gifting, 9% of digital orders across the globe on Thanksgiving Day came from products clicked or tapped on from a product recommendation. This proves that product recommendations provide value beyond the impulse purchase, resulting in 12% more units per transaction (UPT) than their non-AI engaging shoppers across Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
Holiday insight #4: Cyber Monday holds on to the best digital discount day title
As we predicted in October, Cyber Monday is still the best day to get the best digital deals. Average discount rates grew to 31%, up one full percentage point over last year’s Cyber Monday. Free shipping rates also peaked with 83% of Cyber Monday orders shipping free of charge as shoppers were lured back online at the end of the week with the year’s best deals.
Holiday insight #5: Customer service activity spikes on Cyber Monday
Customer service centers were up and ready to answer shoppers’ most urgent questions. Case interactions at service centers grew by 52% on Cyber Monday from Black Friday, with Cyber Monday seeing the biggest spike in activity. Shoppers were also more inclined to pick up the phone on Monday, with calls to service centers rising 77% over Black Friday.
Holiday insight #6: Social buying hits new peaks
Inspiration turned into action this season, as shoppers made digital purchases from social-referring channels. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving was the top day for social purchases on mobile devices as shoppers turned to their social feeds early in the week. Four percent of all mobile orders on Wednesday were from a social-referred channel, climbing up to over 7% when the visit was made through a mobile device. Across the entire week, mobile purchases from a social referring channel grew 41%.
Cyber Monday shoppers were the least likely to turn to their social feeds after heading back to work after the long holiday weekend. Only 6% of digital traffic was referred from a social channel on Monday, the lowest share of social traffic seen across the week.
Holiday insight #7: Shoppers turn to social for product inspiration, questions, and complaints
Shoppers’ social feeds continued to light up as they shared their thoughts on the brands, retailers, and products they cared about the most on Cyber Monday. Below are the top five brands, retailers, and products with the most social callouts on December 2 from across the globe.
Want more Cyber Monday data? Access our holiday insights dashboard here, then read our reports on Thanksgiving results and Black Friday results.
2019 Salesforce holiday insights methodology
To help retailers and brands benchmark holiday performance, Salesforce combined data-based holiday insights on the activity of more than half a billion global shoppers across more than 30 countries powered by Commerce Cloud, billions of consumer engagements and millions of public social media conversations through Marketing Cloud, and customer service data powered by Service Cloud. These holiday flash reports are a derivative of the quarterly Shopping Index.
