Cyber Monday online sales drop 1.4% from last year to $10.7 billion, falling for the first time ever

Consumers logged online on Monday and spent $10.7 billion, marking a 1.4% decrease from year-ago levels, according to data from Adobe Analytics.

This year’s tally marks the first time that Adobe has tracked a slowdown in spending on major shopping days. Adobe first began reporting on e-commerce in 2012, and it analyzes more than 1 trillion visits to retailers’ websites.

Last Cyber Monday, retailers rang up $10.8 billion in sales on the web, as more people stayed home and avoided shopping in retailers’ stores due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. It marked a record day for e-commerce purchases in the United States.

Still, Adobe expects the entire holiday season will see record-breaking e-commerce activity, as shoppers spread out their dollars over more days.

So far, from Nov. 1 through Cyber Monday, consumers in the U.S. have spent $109.8 billion online, which is up 11.9% year over year, Adobe said. And on 22 of those days, consumers purchased more than $3 billion worth of goods, another new milestone, it said.

Adobe anticipates digital sales from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31 will hit $207 billion, which would represent record gains of 10%.

The slowdown in online spending on Monday follows a similar pattern that played out on Thanksgiving day and on Black Friday this year, as shoppers appeared to have spread out their dollars onto more days rather than squeezing their shopping into “Cyber Week.” Some of that behavior has been encouraged by retailers, including e-commerce behemoth Amazon, that have been touting Black Friday style deals since October.

Retailers rang up $8.9 billion in sales online on Black Friday, down from the record of about $9 billion spent on the Friday after Thanksgiving a year earlier, Adobe said. And on Thanksgiving day, consumers spent $5.1 billion on the internet, flat from year-ago levels.

Stores were also a little less crowded on key shopping days this year versus pre-pandemic times, as retailers gave consumers less of a reason to line up outside the mall in the wee hours of the morning. Shopper traffic on Black Friday was up 47.5% compared with year-ago levels, but was still down 28.3% versus 2019, according to separate data from Sensormatic Solutions. Many retailers, including Walmart and Target, also kept their doors closed on Thanksgiving this year.

“With early deals in October, consumers were not waiting around for discounts on big shopping days like Cyber Monday and Black Friday,” said Taylor Schreiner, director at Adobe Digital Insights.