Amazon Benefits From Strong ‘Cyber-Five’ Trends

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Amazon was the biggest beneficiary from the strong growth in online shopping over the “Cyber-Five shopping days, which started on Thanksgiving and ended on Cyber Monday. ChannelAdvisor has released same store sales data for the major online shopping players, and the increase in traffic and purchases was strong for Amazon and solid for eBay.

Amazon grows faster than the baseline

Nomura and Barclays released reports focusing on all of the “Cyber-Five” holiday shopping days. Nomura analyst Robert Drbul and his team said total same store sales on Amazon over those days increased by more than the 15% estimate for e-commerce growth previously given by comScore. Online retailers racked up the strongest growth rate on Thanksgiving with a 43.4% increase in same store sales, followed by Black Friday at 20.3%.

On all five of the shopping days, Amazon outperformed the benchmark with a 21.1% increase on Cyber Monday, which was an acceleration from Black Friday. Amazon also dominated conversations on social media, according to data from Salesforce, with Twitter capturing the lion’s share of those conversations.

eBay and CSE also saw same store says accelerate between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, with eBay enjoying a 7% increase in same store sales. Here’s a look at some of the major online retailers and their same store sales growth over the Cyber-Five:

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According to Drbul, search declined on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Shift to mobile continues

The Nomura team also found that conversion rates for all devices increased on Cyber Monday by the highest rate ever recorded. Year over year comparisons for device conversion rates indicated a 104% increase in smartphones’ share of internet traffic. At the same time, tablets’ traffic share fell 35%, while desktops’ traffic share fell 32% year over year.

The conversion rate for smartphones remained flat with last year, but the Nomura team noted that the huge increase in traffic share resulted in a 125% increase in order share. Barclays analyst Paul Vogel and his team noted that as mobile orders increased, the average order value fell, according to The Wall Street Journal. Consumer electronics took the biggest hit with an 18% decline in average order size. The increase in same store sales actually came from a 10.6% increase in the number of transactions, added Vogel.

Brick-and-mortar stores still losing out

Vogel and his team report that 151 million people shopped over the holiday weekend, citing data from the National Retail Federation. Of those people, 102 million shopped in brick and mortar stores, while 103 million shopped online. Of the people who shopped online, 39.8% did so on Thanksgiving, while 73.1% shopped online on Black Friday.

According to ShopperTrak, brick-and-mortar stores racked up about $12.1 billion in holiday weekend sales, which marked a year over year decline.

Amazon devices rack up a record weekend

Interestingly, Amazon device sales tripled year over year despite the company’s trouble in selling them in general. The online retailer hasn’t made much traction against heavyweights Apple and Samsung thanks to negative reviews for the Fire Phone last year, but the Cyber Five shopping days indicate some interest in Amazon’s devices.

Drbul reported that the company sold millions of devices during the Cyber Five, as all of its devices made the top-selling product list on Black Friday. The Fire was at the top of the list, while the Fire TV Stick was in second place. The Amazon Echo device was the top best seller on Black Friday in all products priced above $100.

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