The Digital Shopping Spree: Global Cyber Monday Sales Hit a Staggering $49.7 Billion
For retailers around the globe, the final curtain call on the post-Thanksgiving shopping blitz proved to be a spectacular one. Cyber Monday 2024 delivered a historic surge in consumer spending, officially solidifying its position as the biggest online shopping day of the entire year. While early reports might have suggested lower numbers, the final tally revealed a truly massive digital haul.
According to data released by Salesforce, global ecommerce sales for Cyber Monday soared to an astonishing **$49.7 billion**. This figure represents a robust 3% increase over the previous year, demonstrating that consumers worldwide are still eager to spend when the deals are hot. Here in the United States, the spending was equally aggressive, with shoppers pouring a record-breaking **$13.3 billion** into online carts.
Mobile Phones Become the Mall
The biggest story of this year’s shopping holiday wasn’t just *what* people were buying, but *how* they were buying it. The smartphone truly replaced the desktop computer as the preferred shopping tool. Mobile devices accounted for an all-time high of **57% of all online sales** on Cyber Monday, translating to $7.6 billion in spending from phones alone. Shoppers were not waiting to get home to their laptops; they were snatching up deals on the go, likely while still recovering from a long holiday weekend.
The peak shopping rush hit in the late evening, a consistent trend, with shoppers spending at a rate of $15.8 million every minute between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. local time. This concentrated burst of activity highlights the last-minute urgency many feel to grab the final advertised discounts of the “Cyber Week” period.
What Was in the Cart? Deep Discounts Drove Sales
This year’s record spending wasn’t fueled by impulse as much as by strategic bargain hunting. Faced with persistent economic caution, consumers held out for the deepest promotions of the season. Retailers delivered, offering significant discounts that spurred purchases across a wide variety of categories.
Unsurprisingly, **electronics** led the way, with retailers slashing prices by an average of over 30% on listed prices. This made it the perfect day to grab those big-ticket items. **Toys** and **apparel** also saw impressive growth and steep markdowns, becoming major drivers of the overall spending. The biggest year-over-year gains were seen in categories like toys, personal care, and jewelry, showing that shoppers were using Cyber Monday as a one-stop shop for everything from holiday gifts to personal indulgences.
An interesting side note is the increasing reliance on alternative payment methods. The use of “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) services hit an all-time high on Cyber Monday, driving nearly a billion dollars in spending as consumers sought flexibility in managing their holiday budgets.
With Cyber Monday wrapping up a spectacular “Cyber Week” that saw total online sales cross $41 billion in the US alone, the strong performance is giving retailers a great deal of optimism heading into the final push of the holiday season. It seems no amount of economic uncertainty can keep a shopper away from a truly spectacular digital deal.