Holiday ecommerce start surpasses record-breaking forecast

Ecommerce holiday spending is higher than anticipated, according to Adobe Analytics. For the first 24 days of November, U.S. ecommerce sales were up 9.6% year-over-year. This exceeds the record-breaking 8.4% increase expected for the entire 2024 holiday shopping season.

And all this spending — $77.4 billion thus far — comes before the biggest discounts take effect.

Consumers are likely to find bigger savings in the week to come. Adobe anticipates that, for instance, in the electronics category, discounts will peak on Cyber Monday (December 2). On that day, discounts are expected to hit 30%. In the first 24 days of November, discounts in electronics topped out at 10.9%, according to the company’s analysis of 1 trillion U.S. retail site visits across 18 product categories.

The five days from Thanksgiving until Cyber Monday is expected to rake in $40.6 billion in online sales.

Why we care. This is good news for marketers looking to optimize holiday campaigns. The early numbers indicate that consumers are ready to buy. And, not only have they started earlier than previous years, but many are comparison shopping and looking to take advantage of the best deals. Understanding where your customers fall within these pricing and buying trends will help your brand make the most of this prosperous season. The stats support two other behaviors related to experience: mobile-first strategies and a growing use of AI agents.

Top categories. Here’s the breakdown for top-selling and high-growth categories ahead of Black Friday.

Timing for discounts. In addition to discounted electronics peaking on Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving Day (November 28) will be a peak discounting day for toys (27% discount), sporting goods (20% discount) and furniture (19%).

On average thus far, sporting goods have been discounted at 10.9%, and furniture only 8.2%, so these are dramatic discounts for online shoppers. Toys have seen an average discount of 14.6% so far this month.

TVs are expected to see their biggest discounts — 24% on Black Friday, versus 10.8% the rest of the month. Saturday, November 30 is expected to see the biggest discounts — 23% off, versus 11.8% — for computers.

Interest in AI agents. Practically speaking, this is the first year retailers are using AI agents for streamlined customer experience. The numbers back this up.

Adobe found that traffic to retail sites from genAI-powered chatbots skyrocketed 1,700% for the first three weeks of November 2024 versus the same period in 2023.

Shift to mobile. Mobile purchases have convincingly overtaken desktop purchases for ecommerce shopping. In recent years, mobile has inched closer to taking the title. Now, optimized mobile experiences and consumer confidence in making purchases through the channel have decisively impacted buying behavior.

In the first 24 days of November, 51.6% of online spend was done through mobile. During this period last year, 49.5% was mobile.

“The holiday season is off to a strong start, and we see a consumer willing to splurge on more expensive items in categories from electronics to appliances, partly in response to persistent discounts,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst, Adobe Digital Insights. “Shoppers are also embracing new ways to shop online this season, from the rise in mobile shopping that will again eclipse desktop, to the use of generative AI-powered chat bots as a shopping assistant.”

Updated holiday stats from Adobe Analytics can be found here.

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