Cyber Monday shopping rises 9% as online sales slow from 2013

INTERNET holiday shopping rose 9 percent today, known as Cyber Monday, slowing from the same time frame last year as Web deals failed to lure consumers, International Business Machines Corp. said. / BLOOMERG FILE PHOTO/DAVID PAUL MORRIS
INTERNET holiday shopping rose 9 percent today, known as Cyber Monday, slowing from the same time frame last year as Web deals failed to lure consumers, International Business Machines Corp. said. / BLOOMERG FILE PHOTO/DAVID PAUL MORRIS

SAN FRANCISCO – Internet holiday shopping rose 9 percent so far today, known as Cyber Monday, slowing from the same time frame last year as Web deals failed to lure consumers.

While online sales today – typically the busiest day for Web shopping as U.S. consumers return to their desks after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend – had increased as of noon in New York, the growth wasn’t as fast as last year when sales had jumped 21 percent in the same period, International Business Machines Corp. said.

Shopping on smartphones and tablets so far today accounted for 23 percent of e-commerce sales, up from a total of 17 percent the previous year.

The slowdown took place even as online retailers Amazon.com Inc. and EBay Inc. slashed prices on electronics to lure shoppers. Amazon is touting its Fire TV for $69 today as part of its Cyber Monday promotions. EBay has discounts on laptops and notebooks of various brands. Gap Inc. and other retailers were also offering discounts of 40 percent off in their online stores today.

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The broader retail industry had a disappointing holiday kickoff on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Spending fell an estimated 11 percent over the weekend from a year earlier, the National Retail Federation said yesterday.

Cyber Monday is typically seen as an opportunity for retailers to “stem some of the bleeding,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass.

Black Friday

“Black Friday becomes more irrelevant every year,” said Mulpuru, who predicts online shopping will reach $89 billion this holiday season. “Black Friday has been eclipsed by Cyber Monday, shipping cutoff dates in December, and even Thanksgiving.”

Spending fell to $50.9 billion over the past four days, down from $57.4 billion in 2013, according to the NRF. It was the second year in a row that sales declined during the post- Thanksgiving Black Friday weekend, which had long been famous for long lines and frenzied crowds.

Holiday shopping is key for retailers – with sales in November and December accounting for about 19 percent of annual revenue, according to the NRF – and more of that is shifting online. While e-commerce orders are growing, they’re still dwarfed by brick-and-mortar sales.

As of yesterday, holiday shoppers had spent $22.7 billion online this season, up 15 percent from a year earlier, according to ComScore Inc. That includes more than $1.5 billion on Black Friday.

Sales at Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, jumped 46 percent on Saturday and 24 percent on Black Friday, according to ChannelAdvisor Corp. That exceeded total e-commerce growth on those days, the research firm found.

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