U.S. retailers are bracing for a slower sales pace on Cyber Monday, in large part because shoppers are finding fewer and smaller discounts and limited selections because of continuing global supply chain snags, according to a Reuters report on Monday (Nov. 29).
Another reason Cyber Monday isn’t expected to be as profitable as in the past is the fact that many retailers spread their holiday shopping promotions across several weeks rather than saving them all for a single day.
Adobe Analytics data shows that Black Friday’s online spending dropped for the first time. U.S. spending on Cyber Monday is expected to be between $10.2 billion and $11.3 billion, compared to $10.8 billion last year. The 2020 amount was up 15% from 2019.
The Omicron variant of the coronavirus is also leading to uncertainty about the economic turnaround, but experts aren’t sure how it will affect consumer spending during the holiday season and beyond. U.S. shoppers spent about $8.9 billion online on Black Friday, down from $9 billion in 2020, Adobe says.
Mastercard SpendingPulse — which measures U.S. retail sales across payment methods and includes purchases made in stores — found that U.S. shoppers spent 14% more on merchandise other than automobiles from Nov. 26 to Nov. 28, compared to the same weekend in 2020.
Online spending was up 5% during the three-day period compared to the same time a year ago, and was down 28.7% from 2019, according to SpendingPulse.
Related news: Cyber Monday Provides Test for Retail Experiences in the Metaverse
Meanwhile, the metaverse is making its holiday shopping season debut this year, with brands and marketplaces using Black Friday and Cyber Monday to test new concepts and invite customers into virtual worlds.
Interest in the metaverse really took off when Facebook rebranded itself to Meta last month to better reflect the company’s move toward developing a virtual world. Facebook’s social virtual reality (VR) platform Horizon Worlds, currently in beta testing, works in conjunction with Oculus Quest. Horizon, which has been in development for several years, features a workplace collaboration platform called Horizon Workrooms that will create remote work meetings that transform attendees into avatars.
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