Online sales during Thanksgiving reported a record 19.7% rise in sales as people once again shopped for deals online, the latest IBM report revealed.
Mobile sales accounted for 25.8% of total sales during Thanksgiving and 21.8% during Black Friday, according to IBM’s Digital Analytics Benchmark.
In the US, New York topped the list of cities for online sales during Black Friday, followed by Atlanta, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Chicago.
IBM Smarter Commerce strategy director Jay Henderson said that the company is off to an incredibly fast start this holiday season as retailers reach out to consumers over cloud, mobile and social platforms.
"This year’s winners will be those that can deliver seamless experiences to consumers wherever, whenever and however they choose to shop," Henderson said.
The report added that iOS user traffic during the festive shopping season reached 28.2% of overall online traffic, higher than Android’s 11.4%.
However, social media played a comparatively small role, with 1% of sales and traffic on ecommerce websites during the season generated via social networking sites.
Another report from Adobe revealed that online sales during Thanksgiving and Black Friday reached 1.062 billion and 1.93 billion respectively, with 24% of them mainly driven by smartphones and tablets.
ComScore’s report revealed that Amazon topped the list of online retailers with 66.1 million US consumers visiting the site on Black Friday via a desktop computer, followed by eBay, Walmart, Best Buy and Target.
ComScore chairman Gian Fulgoni said:"Clearly many consumers prefer to avoid the crowds and lines typically associated with Black Friday by shopping from the comfort of their own homes, and we saw a record 66 million Americans do that this year.
"Also interesting is that the recent trend of kick-starting holiday shopping by opening stores on Thanksgiving Day seems to be having a spillover effect on the online channel.
"Thanksgiving once again posted a well above average growth rate and is the fastest-growing online shopping day over the past five years, as more Americans opt for couch commerce following their Thanksgiving Day festivities."
