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Yesterday Saw $3.3 Billion In Online Purchases (cmo.com)

Friday humanity set a new record for the most money ever spent online in a single day -- and the most ever purchased on mobile devices. An anonymous reader writes: Online sales reached $3.34 billion yesterday, up 11.3% from the same day last year, according to a new report from Adobe Digital Insights. And most of that traffic came from mobile devices. In fact, yesterday became "the first day to ever generate over a billion dollars in online sales from mobile devices," according to their report. Although 64% of online sales came from desktop computers, 55% of the traffic to shopping sites still came from mobile devices -- 45% from smartphones, and 10% from tablets. (Just three years ago, only 20% of Black Friday sales came from mobile devices.)

The top-grossing products appeared to be iPads and Macbooks, Microsoft's Xbox, and Samsung and LG TVs, while the top-grossing toys were electric scooters, drones, Nerf guns and LEGO sets. The products mostly likely to be "out of stock" yesterday included the new NES Classic and the Nintendo 3DS XL Solgaleo Lunala (black edition), the Playstation VR bundle (and the PS4 "Call of Duty: Black Ops" bundle), and the Xbox One S bundle for Madden NFL 17.

The day after Black Friday is now being touted as "Small Business Saturday," a tradition started in 2010 when American Express partnered with the non-profit National Trust for Historic Preservation (and some civic-minded groups in Boston) to encourage people to shop in their local brick-and-mortar stores. American Express reported a $1.7 billion increase in sales on Small Business Saturday in 2015, "with 95 million customers reporting shopping small at local retailers, salons, restaurants and more."

32 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Forgive My Ignorance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Forgive my ignorance, but how does Adobe Digital Insights know how much all, or even a small majority of online retailers sold yesterday. It's difficult for me to believe that Amazon, Walmart, Macy's, Toy 'R Us, Best Buy, et al are feeding Adobe their sales data.

    So, is Adobe Digital Insights pulling numbers out of their ass or are they leveraging all of Adobe's Flash installations to spy on everyone's online transactions?

    1. Re:Forgive My Ignorance by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      Forgive my ignorance, but how does Adobe Digital Insights know how much all, or even a small majority of online retailers sold yesterday.

      An obvious way to do it would be to look at Visa/Mastercard "card-not-present" transactions. That wouldn't give you an exact number, but it would be good enough to print in a headline. Another obvious method would be to just make up a number by extrapolating from last year's data.

    2. Re:Forgive My Ignorance by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      An obvious way to do it would be to look at Visa/Mastercard "card-not-present" transactions.

      Can Adobe do that? To the whole lot, I mean, clearly they could for their own sales.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. I have trouble believing this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    when everyone I know refuses to buy online because of counterfeit products and terrible return policies. In September, I bought four 4T harddrives from Newegg that were used and two didn't work out of the box and two never worked. The two that worked for a while had more than 500 hours on them according to SMART, so they were used. I'm still fighting Newegg for a return. At work, we bought four expensive TVs for conference rooms from Fry's in August, and none worked out of the box. They wouldn't take a return and required us to have on-site service for them. We're still waiting on Samsung. If we had bought them locally, we could have argued in person and maybe gotten a replacement with a restocking fee.

    1. Re:I have trouble believing this... by JoeMerchant · · Score: 2

      Sucks to be you - I buy from Amazon and Newegg all the time, somehow I don't have these same experiences, and judging from the comments on the products I buy, neither do other people who bother to comment. I'm sure it happens, but if it's happening to you all the time, maybe you're doing it wrong?

    2. Re:I have trouble believing this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There must be a note in his file that says to sell him broken shit because he's an asshole. You never get those notes removed either. The only solution is suicide.

    3. Re:I have trouble believing this... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Informative

      when everyone I know refuses to buy online because of counterfeit products and terrible return policies

      So, because everyone you know doesn't shop online, no-one does?

      I guess Amazon is some kind of weird fiction that we're all in on?

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    4. Re:I have trouble believing this... by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      Sometimes it is just your local delivery person. I do not order anything to my residence that cannot stand a solid 20 story fall.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    5. Re: I have trouble believing this... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      What makes him an asshole?

      He expected to get what he ordered to work? I did a PC refresh project for Dell at a Fortune 500 client when I discovered that a new workstation got shipped without a hard drive. My boss told me to call Dell tech support and wished me good luck. I was the asshole who had to explain that a workstation with missing hard drive was unacceptable, I couldn't ship back the missing hard drive because I didn't have it, and that it had to be shipped yesterday. It took a week to get Dell to ship out a replacement hard drive.

    6. Re: I have trouble believing this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I second this poster. NewEgg used to be great, but have gone into the crapper the last couple years. Sadly, Amazon is the only game in town for a lot of things now.
      In all my years buying from Amazon, I have never once received an item that was already opened and used by someone else. Newegg seems to think it is perfectly acceptable to package an item like this back up and sell it as "new".

    7. Re:I have trouble believing this... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Fairy, horror, or shaggy dog?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    8. Re:I have trouble believing this... by Solandri · · Score: 1

      U.S. online sales in 2015 was $342 billion in 2015 The sum total of U.S. retail sales was $4.785 trillion in 2015 Yes online sales are growing. But they're still only about 7% of all retail sales.

      I bought almost everything except groceries from Amazon and Newegg the last decade, but I'm finding myself buying more and more items from brick and mortar stores precisely for the reasons OP gives - counterfeit goods and easier returns. A big part of the reason I bought from Amazon was the no-hassle returns, but they killed that policy this year. Newegg is exempted only because their main warehouse and return center is 2 miles from where I work.

      These guys have yet to learn that people are buying them not just for convenience and price, but because they trust that a big name like Amazon will stand behind the product they sell. If they're gonna mix their inventory with that of their third party sellers, well sorry I'm just gonna buy that item from a big name store whose inventory supply chain I trust. My Amazon orders are way down this year, my Costco purchases are way up (they have a great return policy). And I'm even buying stuff from Best Buy again.

  3. Re:What about China? by flyingfsck · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yup, Alibaba did $5 Billion in the first hour, or 17 Billion for the day. However, since that is not America, it doesn't count.

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  4. Re:What about China? by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

    Dollars or Yuan?

  5. And nothing of value was gained by MrKaos · · Score: 1

    three billion dollars worth of junk.

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    1. Re:And nothing of value was gained by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      If that isn't worth murdering someone over, I don't know what is.

      Discounted toilet paper. Only in America. Oh, wait...

      http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/huge-black-friday-fight-breaks-9331697

    2. Re:And nothing of value was gained by MrKaos · · Score: 1
      I can't resist:

      If that isn't worth murdering someone over, I don't know what is.

      Discounted toilet paper. Only in America. Oh, wait...

      OH Shit!!!

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  6. Re:What about China? by adolf · · Score: 1

    Lies, or Different Lies?

  7. So far this Black Friday... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    I've spent zero dollars. Cyber Monday might change that but I'm doubtful. Considering that the political environment in the U.S. took a turn for the worst, I need the cash on hand more than the big corporations.

    1. Re:So far this Black Friday... by antdude · · Score: 1

      Same here, my contract ends in a few weeks. I only buy when I need them. :(

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    2. Re:So far this Black Friday... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Same here, my contract ends in a few weeks. I only buy when I need them. :(

      I work in government IT and my contract is fully funded for another three years. AFAIK, it's business as usual for the next three years as it would be unusual for Congress to cancel existing contracts outright. I'm preparing for the worse for the next four years.

    3. Re:So far this Black Friday... by antdude · · Score: 1

      Mine only goes up to 1.5 years/18 months (Cisco's previous/former CEO decideded this for contractors :() with quarterly renewals.

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    4. Re:So far this Black Friday... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      My last job was at Cisco but my contract came up for renewal during an announced layoff period (October 2013) and the HR system prevented my boss from renewing my contract. The former CEO got a 60% raise for having a lousy fiscal year. I was out of work for eight months until I got into government IT.

    5. Re:So far this Black Friday... by antdude · · Score: 1

      Ah, yep. I hate that. Before that, I was at Symantec for 12.8333333... years. Such life. I tried to get a job with the government, city, etc. before those jobs but failed even though pays suck. :(

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  8. Humanity? by pahles · · Score: 1

    US humanity? Or does the rest of world count too?

    --
    Sig?
  9. Re:This means..... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

    A double major in CS and Marketing is only good for running hardware companies into the ground.

  10. Re:What about China? by hotdogee · · Score: 5, Informative

    Dollars or Yuan?

    It was 120 Billion Yuan or 17.5 Billion Dollars in a single day.

  11. Peeps is trippin' by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

    If there is anything dumber than risking your life to save a few bucks on Black Thursday/Friday, its buying something using a mobile device. 6 months from now, look for a story about all the mobile users who had their CC accounts compromised.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  12. Re:What about China? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    Does it matter in a post-currency world? It's Dollars, it's Yuan, it's tea tablets, it's boar's teeth - whatever the people believe it is.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  13. I stopped buying from Newegg some time ago by waspleg · · Score: 1

    because of their shitty customer service. You can find comparable pricing if you look around a bit (bhphotovideo/amazon/sometimes fry's,etc).

  14. They stopped trying to do what they were good at by waspleg · · Score: 1

    and they're trying to compete with Amazon and every other All-tailers and in doing so they're fucking awful now having diluted the one thing they were good at years ago.

    It seems every retailer thinks they have to be everything now instead of specializing and doing something well.

  15. Re:What about China? by ghoul · · Score: 1

    As long as its not Bitcoins. Thats a scam

    --
    **Life is too short to be serious**