Mobile devices help front load online holiday sales

Black Friday was huge for online retailers and Cyber Monday is looking to be big as well. But the interesting trend this year is that the emergence of mobile devices is helping front load more online holiday sales as shoppers arent waiting for those two big days to kick off their spending.

Thats one of the takeaways from some of the early shopping data from this holiday weekend in the U.S. and it shows again how mobile is redefining holiday shopping. New data from Comscore found that Black Friday sales were up 26 percent from 2010 to reach $816 million. But Thanksgiving day sales were also up 18 percent to $479 million and sales from Nov. 1 to Nov. 25 increased by 15 percent to $12.7 billion. IBM Coremetrics data found that Thanksgiving day sales revenue was up39.3 percent thanks to early sales promotions.

Whats happening, according to a JP Morgan research note, is that online shopping is shifting earlier as the line between online and offline commerce blurs, something that mobile devices are enabling. JP Morgan noted a Shop.org survey over the weekend that found that almost 15 percent of respondents will shop on a smartphone or tablet on Cyber Monday, compared to 6.9 percent who did so last year. IBM Cor! emetrics said that sales on mobile devices for Black Friday increased to 9.8 percent from 3.2 percent year over year.

Indeed, PayPal also noted that since 2009, its been seeing an increasing lift on Thanksgiving day as more shoppers take advantage of idle time on the holiday to begin their shopping using mobile devices like tablets. We wrote about this Couch Commerce trend before and it looks like it stayed true to form this year. PayPal said global mobile payment volume was up 511 percent on Thanksgiving 2011 compared to the year earlier, and there was an 350 percent increase in the number of global customers buying with PayPal mobile on Thanksgiving day compared to 2010.

In recent years, free shipping and rapid delivery have helped shoppers put off purchases later into the holiday season and mobile devices are still expected to help shoppers find last-minute gifts after the shipping deadlines pass. But now as more people use their mobile devices and turn to them at home and in stores, its encouraging users to get out earlier to start picking up gifts. UBS and JP Morgan are predicting online holiday sales will be up 15 and 16 percent, respectively, from last year in part due to earlier holiday shopping.

Mobile devices are having a profound effect on shopping. Its helping traditional online sales thanks to very shopping-friendly devices like the iPad and the new Amazon Kindle. Its enabling consumers to feel more confident about purchases because! they ha ve access to data at all times, and its also helping consumers buy immediately as they hunt in store for deals. Apps like ShopSavvy and RedLaser are letting consumers not only find better deals on products in store but theyre now able to purchase them right from a store aisle.

Well have to see if sales projections for this holiday season hold up and if the early gains continue all the way to Christmas. Its possible that shoppers may be shifting their sales forward but not buying more online. But with the way consumers are increasingly relying on mobile devices, I wouldnt be surprised if purchases are not only more front loaded but bigger overall as the shopping experience evolves with the proliferation of tablets and smartphones.

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