Cyber Monday was the biggest online shopping day in U.S. history. According to Adobe, the grand total was an estimated $6.6 billion in sales, representing a 17 percent increase over last year. In comparison, Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day generated $5 billion and $2.9 billion in online sales, respectively.
The top Cyber Monday sellers included: Nintendo Switch, Apple AirPods, Google Chromecast and Funko Pop dolls. “Super Mario Odyssey”, Apple AirPods, Samsung tablets, Apple iPads Sony PlayStation VR and Microsoft Xbox One X were some of the top purchases from these sellers. The most popular toys purchases on Cyber Monday were PJ Masks, Funko Pop dolls, L.O.L Surprise dolls, ride-on cars and Hatchimals Collectibles figurines.
Online giant, Amazon (AMZN), once again beat its own sales record on Cyber Monday. In fact, it shared that Cyber Monday 2017 is now its single biggest shopping day of all time. From Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, customers ordered “hundreds of millions of products”. According to Amazon, their best-selling product was an Amazon-branded product: the Echo Dot smart speaker.
In a statement, Dave Limp, senior VP of Amazon devices and services, shared that “Customers purchased millions of Amazon’s Alexa-enabled devices this weekend, and Alexa devices were the top sellers across all of Amazon”.
The “big guys” were not the only businesses who enjoyed their biggest sales on Cyber Monday. Small businesses and entrepreneurs also experienced record breaking sales on the online platform Cyber Monday. Customers ordered almost 140 million products from small businesses globally during the five-day period following Thanksgiving.
Protecting Your Business from Online Shopping Scams
According to the National Federation, an estimated 164 million Americans shared that they planned to shop online during Thanksgiving weekend rather than at big retailers like Target and Walmart. With such a massive number of consumers shopping via mobile browsers, experts urged holiday shoppers to be wary of online holiday shopping scams. Their biggest tips? Be cautious when shopping on a mobile device, lookout for bogus apps, avoid questionable email links and always use secure network connections.
Friendly fraud and scams have also led many business owners to secure additional measures of security for their business and customers. For example, chargeback protection and prevention programs from a provider like EMerchantBroker.com. With an ever-increasing number of consumers opting to shop online versus in-store during the holidays, these solutions will likely be more and more sought after in the future.