Shoppers pick up items on the eve of Thanksgiving sale (Photo : Getty images/Anadolu Agency)
As many turn to internet for holiday shopping, Thanksgiving Day is in full swing. Adobe stated that nearly $1.15 billion e-commerce transactions as sales were recorded by 5pm Eastern time. This is up by 13.6 percent from previous year.
The breakup of sales can be described as - $449 million was spent on mobile devices ($322 million smartphones; $127 million tablets), which is staggering that is up by 58.6 percent as compared to 2015. Surprisingly, $702 million purchases were done via desktop sites.
Earlier, Adobe said Thanksgiving Day would break the record of $2 billion mark for money spent online. Now, it has altered by saying that spending is currently "on track to either hit or come close to $2 billion."
Techcrunch explains that even if some, like Visa, projected that more buyers than ever before would shop online this year, en masse, retailers clearly put chips on low mark-downs to draw interest and big transaction volumes.
For instance, Tablets were marked down by more than 25 percent on average as compared to last year's 12 percent. TVs, toys and pet care goods "are seeing much larger discounts than last year." Adobe writes.
Portals like RetailMeNot showed off a key role in promoting those discounts.
Reuters reported that Stores in United States tried to boost in-store sales on Thanksgiving while retailers offered online deals much in advance to cope with lower demand and stiff pricing competition.
"We saw one of our strongest days ever online," Brian Cornell, chief executive of discount retailer Target.
The holiday season held in November and December is the most crucial time for retailers as it accounts nearly 40 percent of annual sales. Retailers even try to get the attention of shoppers with heavy discounts and sometimes these are nearly 85 percent.
The National Retail Federation, that has been quite bullish with projections in the past, anticipated that holiday sales will grow 3.6 percent this year to $655.8 billion.
"Online discounts are earlier and a lot bigger than last year," said Tamara Gaffney, principal research analyst at Adobe Digital Index.
