Thanksgiving Day Online Sales Exceed $1 Billion

U.S. consumers hit their mobile devices and laptops to shop on Thanksgiving Day, racking up sales of over $1.15 billion. That online sales tally marked a 13.6 percent increase over last year’s holiday, according to data from Adobe Systems, which analyzed data from 21 billion visits to retail websites. Of that $1.15 billion, a record $449 million in revenue came from mobile devices — $322 million from smartphones and $127 million via tablets — 58.6 percent more than last year. Thirty-nine percent of the purchases made yesterday were made from mobile devices.

Total Retail's Take: I'm happy to see that more and more Thanksgiving Day shopping is taking place online, not in brick-and-mortar stores. The more revenue coming online during the holiday, and the less being spent in-store, will hopefully convince retailers to keep their stores closed on Thanksgiving. Let retail employees enjoy Thanksgiving with their families and friends, and then be ready to go for the craziness that is Black Friday and the holiday shopping season. Also, these numbers from Adobe just reinforce what we already know: mobile commerce is here. If your brand isn't courting mobile shoppers, it's losing out on a lot of sales.