US: Cyber Monday breaks online sales record at $10.8B

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - American consumers spent $10.8 billion shopping Cyber Monday, setting a new record for US single-day online purchases, according to data released by Adobe Analytics.

As millions of Americans preferred to stay indoors for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend because of the coronavirus, the online shopping frenzy that takes place the following Monday saw a 15.1% increase from a year ago, according to the data analytics firm.

Online shopping broke new records for Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, reaching $9 billion and $5.1 billion, respectively, increasing 21.6% and 21.4% from 2019, according to Adobe.

Amazon, which saw a major surge in online sales throughout 2020 due to the virus, said the holiday season was its biggest sale period in company history.

"Independent businesses selling on Amazon—nearly all of which are small- and medium-sized businesses—surpassed $4.8 billion in worldwide sales from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, an increase of over 60% from last year," it said in a statement.

As for small- and medium-sized businesses, they sold an average of 9,500 products per minute in the US, while more than 71,000 around the world have surpassed $100,000 in sales, it said.