After last year’s record-breaking holiday shopping season, Adobe is forecasting $91.6 billion in online holiday sales — up 11 percent over 2015.
While online holiday sales are expected to increase, Adobe says the overall growth rate for 2016 will be slower than last year.
According to Adobe’s 2016 Digital Insights Shopping Predictions, Cyber Monday is expected to bring in $3.36 billion, up nearly $30 million from 2015’s $3.07 billion — but if the numbers turn out as expected, this year’s Cyber Monday will be up 9.4 percent over last year, while 2015’s Cyber Monday saw a 15.8 percent year-over-year increase.
Adobe’s actual & predicted online sales in billions
The same holds true for online sales happening on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Adobe predicts holiday-related online purchases made on Thanksgiving Day will be up 15.6 percent year over year — not quite the 25 percent year-over-year growth rate seen last Thanksgiving Day.
Black Friday’s online sales are expected to grow 11.3 percent year over year this holiday season, compared to 14.3 percent year-over-year growth in 2015.
Still, at $3.36 billion, this year’s Cyber Monday will be the largest online shopping day of all time.
Adobe’s predicted online sales by day during the 2016 holiday season
According to Adobe’s data, not only will online sales go up, but the 2016 holiday shopping season is expected to grow as well, with holiday-related online sales starting earlier in the year and going later into the season. Adobe predicts the industry will see 53 consecutive days of $1 billion in online sales — a 71-percent year-over-year increase compared to 2015’s 31 consecutive $1-billion days.
“We expect to see a five percent spike in online shopping in early November and a record 24 percent increase in the last two weeks of December,” says Adobe’s VP of Marketing and Customer Insights, Mickey Mericle, in a release announcing the company’s holiday shopping predictions.
Regarding device use during the holiday season, Adobe predicts mobile shopping visits will surpass desktop for the first time ever — with 53 percent of shopping visits happening on mobile versus 47 percent expected to happen on desktop.
Adobe says Thanksgiving and Christmas will account for the year’s biggest mobile retail days — with Christmas seeing 66 percent of shopping visits on mobile and Thanksgiving seeing 59 percent on mobile.
Desktop is still expected to outperform mobile for online sales revenue during the holidays — with mobile shopping visits only accounting for 34 percent of online sales.
Adobe’s predicted mobile share of visits & revenue for 2016 holiday season
Adobe’s data also included the most popular channels for holiday discounts, with shoppers most likely to find the best deals via display ads, followed by social media, and then email.
For retailers wanting to engage consumers on mobile during the holiday season, Adobe reports 40 percent of consumers surveyed said email was the best way to reach them on a mobile device.
Most effective way to target holiday shoppers via mobile
Adobe says it is able to track 80 percent of all transactions for the top 100 retailers in the US and that its 2016 Digital Insights Shopping Predictions are based on 55 million product SKUs and aggregated and anonymous data of more than one trillion visits to 4,500 retail websites.
You can find more information about Adobe’s holiday forecasts here: Adobe’s 2016 Digital Insights Shopping Prediction.
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