According to IBM, US shoppers once again took advantage of early promotions this holiday season, driving a 17.4 percent increase in online sales Thanksgiving Day. This increase set the stage for 20.7 percent growth on Black Friday. The biggest surge came from mobile consumers, with sales reaching 16.3 percent, led by the iPad. This data is the result of cloud-based analytics findings from IBM.
As part of IBM’s Smarter Commerce initiative, the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark revealed the following trends as of 12:00 am PST:
• Consumer Spending Increases: Online sales on Thanksgiving grew by 17.4 percent followed by Black Friday where sales increased 20.7 percent over last year.
• Mobile Shopping: Mobile purchases soared with 24 percent of consumers using a mobile device to visit a retailer’s site, up from 14.3 percent in 2011. Mobile sales exceeded 16 percent, up from 9.8 percent in 2011.
• The iPad Factor: The iPad generated more traffic than any other tablet or smartphone, reaching nearly 10 percent of online shopping. This was followed by iPhone at 8.7 percent and Android 5.5 percent. The iPad dominated tablet traffic at 88.3 percent followed by the Barnes and Noble Nook at 3.1 percent, Amazon Kindle at 2.4 percent and the Samsung Galaxy at 1.8 percent.
• Multiscreen Shopping: Consumers shopped in store, online and on mobile devices simultaneously to get the best bargains. Overall 58 percent of consumers used smartphones compared to 41 percent who used tablets to surf for bargains on Black Friday.
• The Savvy shopper: While consumers spent more overall, they shopped with greater frequency to take advantage of retailer deals and free shipping. This led to a drop in average order value by 4.7 percent to $181.22. In addition, the average number of items per order decreased 12 percent to 5.6.
• Social Media Sentiment Index: Shoppers expressed positive consumer sentiment on promotions, shipping and convenience as well as the retailers themselves at a three to one ratio.
• Social Sales: Shoppers referred from Social Networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube generated .34 percent of all online sales on Black Friday, a decrease of more than 35 percent from 2011.
“This year’s holiday shopper was hungry for great deals and retailers didn’t disappoint, rolling out compelling offers which consumers gobbled up on Thanksgiving straight through Black Friday,” said Jay Henderson, Strategy Director, IBM Smarter Commerce, in the press release. “The big winners were chief marketing officers who used technology to deliver customer experiences that not only connected shoppers with personalized deals but did so at the right touchpoint and at precisely the right time and place, whether on their couch or the store floor.”
“To remain relevant, retailers must find opportunities to participate in holiday rituals in ways that aid consumers’ attainment of the holidays they imagine — enjoying time with family and shopping when convenient,” said Tonya Bradford Assistant Professor, Mendoza School of Business, the University of Notre Dame, in the press release. “Technology provides more opportunities for retailers to create these experiences for consumers through their mobile computing devices.”
Holiday sales growth was led by several industries which include:
• Department stores continued to offer compelling deals and promotions that drove sales to grow by 16.8 percent over Black Friday 2011.
• Health and Beauty sales increased 11 percent year over year with consumers once again choosing to pamper themselves this holiday.
• Home goods maintained its momentum this year, reporting a 28.2 percent increase in sales from Black Friday 2011.
• Apparel sales were also strong this holiday with Black Friday numbers showing an increase of 17.5 percent over 2011.
Today’s news is based on findings from the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark, the industry’s only cloud-based Web analytics platform that tracks more than a million e-commerce transactions a day, analyzing terabytes of raw data from 500 retailers nationwide.
Analysis of public social media content came from the IBM Social Sentiment Index, an advanced analytics and natural language processing tool that analyzes large volumes of social media data to assess public opinions. With this data IBM helps chief marketing officers (CMOs) better understand and respond to the needs of each individual customer, improving sourcing, inventory management, marketing, sales and services programs.
More information on Smarter Commerce can be found at www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/smarter_commerce/overview/
Source: IBM Corporation
MacDailyNews Take: Duh, I want to waste my money on an Android iPhone wannabe or iPad knockoff and be forevermore relegated to second-class-or-worse afterthought status by developers, retailers, vehicle makers, accessory makers, and everyone else on the planet! Ain’t I sooo smart?!
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Fandroids must be buying them galaxies for door stops.
Nothing comes close, nothing compares.
Apple’s iPhone and iPad rule the world .
The graphics shown above are terribly misleading. The area associated with each item does not correlate with the actual data, which in this case, gives an incorrect indication of the importance of the non-iOS items. I assume that’s what you get when a non-quant makes up the graphics. For other examples, see the book “How To Lie With Statistics” (a classic), or anything by Edward Tufte, the reigning emperor of statistical graphics.
Android users are expecting everything must be FREE , so don’t expect android users will spend a penny.
Propaganda by the government. Sales declined overall upon revision which will get no media attention. Liberty is dead, deal with it.
Whatsamatter, run out of tea at your party?
I used my phone to pull up some information and decide on where I wanted to shop but strangely I bought nothing online this holiday season. Last year I bought quite a bit.
I guess people do not trust Android and are not willing to use them for financial transactions… and they are right.
BTW, Apple will rule this season, my friend who is the cheapest person on earth, bought 2 iPod touches and the latest iPad.
Clearly those graphics are just artwork and not actual representations of the numbers being reported. Buy why make such a horrible presentation? 100% for a pie graph total. Simple.
OfficeMax had the best deal on iTunes Gift Cards at 30%-off. That translates to Final Cut Pro X for $210 at the App Store, with Motion costing only $35.
On this Thanksgiving occasion I want to thank all the women who want to kill their babies by crushing their little skulls and sucking their little brains out… for reelecting me!
Thank you and have a happy Thanksgiving!
I’m almost positive this isn’t true… :-/
And yet somehow you were able to survive the procedure and come here to babble.
I am glad you also voted for me. Thank you.
I like my subjects clueless and ignorant like you.
They are known as Useful Idiots.
Though I have not seen it in this thread, when I see someone comment that the iPad mini is overpriced and if only Apple had priced it at, say, $250, it would decimate sales of android tablets, the correct response I think should be: Will Apple sell all of the iPads Mini it can produce? If “yes” then it’s not overpriced. I think they will sell every one they can produce.
The ‘Droids’, ‘Dungs’ & ‘Dooks’ deserve what they get. The ‘Thanks For Coming Along’ award of the year. So richly deserved!