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Veterans’ and Singles’ Days drive an early start to peak, with mobile growing strongly, Adobe data shows

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Holiday shopping season has started early – driven by Veterans’ Day and Singles’ Day in the US and China, as well as many shoppers looking for early bargains.

According to Adobe Analytics data, $19.7 billion has been spent during the holiday season so far, representing a 17.5% increase YoY. Veteran’s Day benefited from being on a Monday this year, with consumers spending $2.7 billion, a 38% increase YoY when compared to the Monday of Veteran’s Day weekend 2018.

Singles’ Day, the popular Chinese retail holiday – also on Nov. 11 this year – saw $38 bn in sales, representing an increase of about 25% YoY. One of Adobe’s execs takes a look at Singles’ Day popularity and why it’s not doing as well in the U.S., compared to other popular shopping days in this blog post.

In the age of real and artificial ecommerce holidays, “Cash Back Day” surprised many by putting itself on the map – and surpassing the prediction for the day by 11%, falling just a few million short of $2bn.

Consumers are also seeing strong discounts as retailers push for early deals this season to try to offset the shorter period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, with a shorter period between Thanksgiving and Christmas having the potential to hurt retailer sales, they’re offsetting that effect by enticing customers with early deals.

Consumers could purchase computers at a 10.5% discount and televisions at 16.0% off on Veteran’s Day, compared to October prices. Last year, the discounts didn’t reach these levels until Thanksgiving Day.

Mobile is also playing a stronger role than ever, with consumers using smartphones to make purchases this season more often. Adobe is seeing 34.5% of all e-commerce sales have been made on a smartphone, 15.3% up YoY. 

“Given how sales have been tracking in this shortened holiday season, we reaffirm our full season (Nov-Dec) forecast of $143.7 billion spent online (14% growth YoY),” says Taylor Schreiner, Principal Analyst, Adobe Digital insights. “Holiday shopping has begun in earnest with consumers pouring onto retailers’ websites to find the early deals of the season. All signs point to strong sales growth this year, with consumers buying almost 50% more than last year just through their phones. And this may be one of the best years for consumers to date as promotional price discounts are much deeper than they were at this time last year – TV prices alone are down nearly 15% from October.” 

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