US Holiday Shoppers Broke Online Spending Record

According to Adobe Analytics (San Jose, Calif.), U.S. shoppers spent $126 billion online over the 2018 holiday season, setting a new record for e-commerce spending.

Mobile platforms made up the majority of web retail traffic (51 percent) between November and December, making up a third of all online purchases. Overall, online spending was 16.5 percent higher than last year’s total.

To compile the statistics, Adobe collected and measured 80 percent of all online transactions from the top 100 U.S. web retailers, according to Reuters.

The increase in online spending is credited to lengthier sales: Shoppers spent an average of 40 percent more per day in the three weeks after Cyber Monday than in the first three weeks of the season, the report said, and sales continued to grow until Dec. 17. Consumer confidence was another factor that contributed to the boost in sales.