Adobe: 46 per cent of retail traffic driven by mobile

$27 Billion Spent Online so far; Star Wars’ Kylo Ren, Xbox One, Samsung Gear VR, and GoPro HERO3 Top Sellers

Adobe released its first set of 2015 Digital Index Online Shopping data for the holiday season. Between November 1 and November 24, nearly $27 billion have been spent online, 8.5 percent more than in 2014. Mobile devices continue to play a dominant role in online shopping, driving 46 percent of visits to retail sites and 24 percent of sales ($6.32 billion).

Top selling products so far include Samsung and LG TVs, iPad Minis, Dyson vacuum cleaners, and Dell Inspiron computers, some of which were heavily discounted. Amazon has driven more than 100,000 global social mentions related to Black Friday alone, more than any other U.S. retailer.

“Discounts are currently averaging 21 percent and out-of-stock incidents are already higher than last year by 5 to 10 percent,” said Tamara Gaffney, principal research analyst, Adobe Digital Index. “Consumers should shop early to secure popular gift items. Top selling products like the Xbox One, Samsung Gear VR, Star Wars’ Kylo Ren, and the GoPro HERO3 are already low in stock.”

Adobe’s insights are based on aggregated and anonymous data from more than 1.7 billion visits to 4,500 retail websites. Adobe’s retail reports offer the most comprehensive data compilation in the industry, measuring 80 percent of all online transactions from the top 100 U.S. retailers. Seven dollars and fifty cents out of every 10 dollars spent online with the top 500 U.S. retailers go through Adobe Marketing Cloud. Social media findings are based on more than 100 million global social mentions captured and analyzed from blogs, Google+, Reddit, Twitter, Dailymotion, Flickr, Instagram, Tumblr, Foursquare, YouTube, WordPress, and others. The tremendous volume of data puts Adobe in the unique position to deliver highly accurate, census-based online sales totals, pricing and product availability trends.

Key findings include:

• Mobile Impact - Mobile shopping is ahead of expectations with 46 percent of online retail visits coming from a smartphone (35 percent) or tablet (11 percent). Mobile has generated $6.3 billion in online sales, which represents about 24 cents on the dollar for online sales.
• Total Spend - Consumers have spent $26.8 billion this season so far, $98.10 on average per Internet user. The average order value increased by seven percent year-over-year (YOY) to $125.63. November 11 (“Singles’ Day”) set a new U.S. sales record with $1.35 billion and offered stronger discounts than expected for apparel and electronics, averaging 20 percent. Total online sales this holiday season are still expected to grow 11 percent YoY.
• Pricing Trends – Discounts averaged 15 percent so far this season and continued to increase since last weekend. Promotions on Monday, November 23, and Tuesday, November 24, were in-line with Adobe’s predictions, 22 and 21 percent discounts on average, respectively.
• Top Online Retailers – Amazon and eBay lead online retailers with more than 20 million social media conversations, nearly two and a half times more social buzz than the top five brick-and-click retailers (Target, WalMart, Gap, H&M and Best Buy) combined. Amazon has driven more than 100,000 social mentions related to Black Friday alone – more than any other retailer.