The kickoff to this year's holiday shopping season has come and gone, and in its wake Adobe, among others, has released online sales figures for Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Here's a look at Adobe's numbers, which are based on "on aggregated and anonymous data from 150 million visits to 4,500 retail websites," along with some predictive modeling: 

A record $4.45 billion is expected to be spent online by the end of the day - $2.72 billion on Black Friday, 14 percent more than in 2014 and $1.73 billion on Thanksgiving Day, a 25% increase year-over-year (YoY). 

While mobile shopping saw strong growth with a 34 percent share of sales, the role of tablets continued to decline. Tablets drove 15 percent of sales on Black Friday, a two percent decrease YoY. Smartphones generated a record 22 percent share of sales, 70 percent more than in 2014. iPhone and iPad continued to drive the majority of mobile sales with 67 and 84 percent respectively.

A record $2.98 billion will be spent [on Cyber Monday] by end of day (12% more than in 2014), the largest online sales day in history. Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday will drive a total of $11 billion in online sales, a 15% increase YoY and 30% of all online sales in November ($39.5 billon). The first 18 days in December are all expected to be $1 billion sales days. Brick-and-click retailers saw the strongest growth in sales YoY with 18 percent, reversing the trend of Cyber Monday being an online-only retailer day. 

Analysis: Looking Behind the Numbers

Other sources, such as ShopperTrak, said foot traffic to retail stores was down this year—which hardly seems a surprise given the uptick in online sales. But it would be a mistake to conclude that the value of brick-and-mortar locations took a hit, or at least need to, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Guy Courtin.

“While with the basic numbers, what we are seeing is that stores are losing value, it doesn’t paint the full picture," he says. For example, retail locations may handle fewer direct sales but could instead focus more on fulfillment of online orders and returns, Courtin says.

Meanwhile, retailers are caught in an dilemma from moves such as Amazon's work to build out a national infrastructure of distribution centers. "Traditional retailers already have that infrastructure in place," Courtin says. "But who do they partner with to handle that last mile to consumers? They’re looking at it but they’re struggling with it.”

Going back to the online sales numbers, the meaning of promotions such as Cyber Monday is becoming diluted, since special online sales events now happen many days before the big day, and shoppers' buying habits overall are changing. "Retailers are just pushing the promotions earlier and earlier," Courtin says. "The whole term 'cyber Monday' is in and of itself dated, with this idea of going online to shop at a certain time. We do it all the time."

“For example, you’re sitting watching football on Thanksgiving and your crazy Uncle Joe is on his third story about how he played high school football in the 1950s," Courtin says. "So what do you do? You’re on your phone shopping."

Finally, this year's shopping season will underscore the need for retail CxOs "to have a really holistic view of the their available inventory across their channels, because they want to be able to satisfy their customers," Courtin says. "Customers no longer accept different experiences whether accessing via physical store, online, call center or via a mobile app. In order to meet these customer expectations CxOs must have a holistic view and understanding of their supply chain."

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