by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, November 2, 2017

Adobe on Thursday released its annual holiday season sales numbers — estimating that this year, online sales will rise 13.8% year-over-year to $107.4 billion, outpacing in-store retail sales by 10%.

The data suggests that one in every $6 of holiday spending will be spent between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday — with about $19.7 billion spent during those five of the 61 total days in the 2017 season.

Cyber Monday is expected to become the largest online shopping day in history, with 16.5% YoY growth, reaching $6.6 billion in online sales. Thanksgiving Day is expected to grow 15%, with YoY reaching $2.8 billion.

The report is based on an analysis of one trillion visits to over 4,500 retail sites and 55 million product numbers or SKUs.

Adobe also estimates that mobile visits to retail sites will surpass desktop for the first time at 54%, attributing 45% to smartphones, 9% to tablets and 46% to desktops.

Desktop share of revenue will fall 6% to 66% and tablet share will fall by 9% YoY to 10%. Smartphones will take share, rising 26% to 24% market share.

Adobe estimates that the best days for deals will be Black Friday, with merchants discounting televisions by 23.7% on average. Tablets will drop by 23.6%; jewelry, 12%; and appliances, 17.7%.

Consumers will find the best deals for computers, sporting goods, apparel, and video game and consoles on Thanksgiving. Cyber Monday will be known for discounts on toys.

Consumers are expected to purchase more items at lower prices, as four in five product categories measured show higher unit growth than revenue growth. Toys will rise 39% in terms of unit growth, but only 24% in revenue, for example. Apparel will rise 20% in units, but only 17% in revenue growth, while jewelry will fall 3% for both unit and revenue growth.

Not surprisingly, large retailers with an average annual revenue of more than $100 million will see higher order values (AOVs) than small retailers, generating about $10 million in annual revenue. The AOV for large retailers at $171 is in contrast to the AOV for smaller retailers at $90 on desktop, $162 versus $77 on tablets, and $141 vsersus $71 on smartphones, respectively.

Large retailers will see higher desktop conversion rates of 4.9%, but will have lower mobile conversion rates of 1.6%. Smaller retailers will see on average 3.4% for desktop and 1.9% for smartphones.

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

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