Forget Black Friday – Super Saturday is going to leave it in the dust in terms of holiday sales, according to figures from Customer Growth Partners quoted by Bloomberg, projected to reach $26 billion compared to $24 billion for the day after Thanksgiving.
Meanwhile Adobe Analytics reports $110.6 billion was spent online between Nov. 1 and Dec. 19, up 17.8% or $16.7 billion from 2017, making it the biggest online shopping period of all time in the U.S.
A strong economy, low unemployment and low fuel prices are all contributing to strong holiday sales this year, Bloomberg reports. As for Super Saturday, 44% of U.S. adults plan to shop that day, up from 38% in 2017.
The big bump on Super Saturday is also partly a function of the calendar, according to Customer Growth Partners, with shoppers having an extra day between it and Christmas.
Adobe is predicting a continuing boom in the convenience of buy online pickup in store (BOPIS) for harried last-minute shoppers on what it’s calling “Panic Saturday.” Through Dec. 19 BOPIS orders increased 47% from 2017, according to Adobe.
Saturday will also feature some of the best holiday sales deals of the of the season on toys, televisions and computers, the company reported, with projected discounts of 28.2%, 16.3% and 15.9% respectively.
Mobile commerce continues to explode, with Adobe reporting $33 billion in sales from Nov. 1 through Dec. 19, up 57% from 2017. This was the first year that more than half of ecommerce site visits came from mobile, according to Adobe, accounting for 58.3% of traffic.
Adobe’s holiday sales findings are based on more than 1 trillion visits to retail sites and 55 million SKUs, including transactions from 80 top online companies. Overall Adobe is projecting $126 billion in online sales this holiday season, revised up from an earlier figure of $124.1 billion, which would be a 16.5% gain over $108.1 billion in 2017.