By Aishwarya Venugopal, Arriana McLymore
(Reuters) -Americans spent $13.3 billion online in the United States on Monday, according to a report from Adobe (NASDAQ:), as consumers got steep holiday discounts on everything from electronics to toys after lackluster demand in U.S. stores on Black Friday.
Consumers spent 7.3% more compared to Cyber Monday in 2023. That follows the roughly $10.8 billion Americans spent online on Black Friday this year, according to Adobe, which tracks devices that use its software to spend more than Enabling 1 trillion visits to the US. retail sites.
Retailers have been coaxing wary U.S. shoppers on Cyber Monday — traditionally America’s biggest Internet shopping day — with push notifications, emails and other ads touting deeply discounted cosmetics, electronics, toys, clothing and other products.
With just 23 days before Christmas, discounts were bigger this year, with shoppers waiting for days with big promotions, experts say. For example, Goal (NYSE:) said it was offering 50% off thousands of items including video games, home decor and other technology items with a “two-day Cyber Monday” sale starting Sunday.
These measures follow a mixed holiday season so far, with moderate in-store spending on key shopping days such as Black Friday. Sales at physical stores grew just 0.7% year over year on Friday, according to preliminary estimates from payment processor Mastercard (NYSE:). Meanwhile, data firm Facteus said sales were actually lower.
Online, retailers like Walmart (NYSE:) and Amazon (NASDAQ:) have relied on generative AI customer service and search features to make it easier for shoppers to find products on websites and mobile apps.
Pittsburgh resident Cheyenne Berens, 29, used Amazon’s generative AI chatbot Rufus to track the prices of baby items and electronics this holiday season. Amazon launched Rufus in February to give customers product recommendations and details based on its entire product catalog.
“I have found that using Rufus on Amazon has been extremely helpful in determining whether a ‘deal’ is actually a ‘deal,'” Berens said. She has been following the fluctuating prices of a Pack ‘n’ Play portable box and waiting for the right time to buy it. The price started at $90 before the holidays, briefly rose to $120 and then dropped back to $90, she said.
Caila Schwartz, director of consumer insights at Salesforce (NYSE:), a cloud computing company that tracks global shopping data for more than 1.5 billion consumers, said GenAI tools such as chatbots can answer online shoppers’ basic questions, such as questions about products, helped retailers improve their protect profit margins despite rising costs.
On Saturday, retailers using GenAI customer service tools saw a 15% higher purchase rate by users, according to Salesforce estimates. Schwartz said the higher so-called conversion rate is “a game changer.”
Preliminary estimates from Adobe predict that U.S. online consumer spending will be between $13.2 billion and $13.5 billion on Monday.
On Cyber Monday, traffic to retail sites, from chatbots or shoppers clicking a link to a website, increased 1,950% over Black Friday over the entire weekend, Adobe said.
With many Americans finding themselves in more debt lately, many are turning to third-party “buy now, pay later” services, with spending on the services reaching $991 million, according to Adobe.
