Cyber Monday Results: Sales Start Slow as Early Discounts Hurt

Online sales grew a smaller than expected 8 percent on Cyber Monday after web promotions before and during the Thanksgiving weekend deprived business from what is usually the busiest internet shopping day of the year.

As of 6 p.m. EST on Dec. 1, data from IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark showed Cyber Monday sales grew sharply slower than comScore data over the holiday weekend.

"Consumers are definitely shopping earlier," said Scot Wingo, ChannelAdvisor's chief executive officer, according to Bloomberg. "Thanksgiving eats into Black Friday, and Saturday and Sunday are eating into Cyber Monday."

Their data showed a 32 percent rise in online orders on Thanksgiving and 26 percent on Black Friday, according to Reuters.

Cyber Monday sales were previously expected to rise between 13-15 percent.

"Consumers are not holding back their purchases for deals on certain days anymore and that trend is becoming increasingly clear," said Jay Henderson, strategy program director at IBM to Reuters.

Until a few years ago, shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday kicked off the holiday shopping season. But now, in order to compete with Amazon, most U.S. retailers like Target, Best Buy and Wal-Mart started offering some of their best sales several weeks in advance.

Early discounts during the Thanksgiving weekend hurt in-store sales, which dropped 11 percent, according to a statement by the National Retail Federation.

"We're still getting really strong growth on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but people are realizing it's a season of shopping," Soren Mills, chief marketing officer at Newegg Inc., an online electronics retailer, according to Bloomberg. "We're releasing new deals all the time. We refresh constantly and bring in new deals to keep the excitement there. People are turning it from a day-long occasion to a month long occasion."

Cyber Monday sales were driven once again by mobile traffic, which grew 38.3 percent this year, even as the average order value remained at $131.66, IBM confirmed to Reuters.