Holiday e-commerce revenue will surpass $100B, according to Adobe

Adobe says this year’s holiday e-commerce earnings will beat last year’s $92 billion — up 13.8 percent to break $100 billion.

According to Adobe, online sales will reach $107.4 billion, with the largest online shopping day of the year to occur Cyber Monday, November 27. The Monday after Thanksgiving is expected to bring in $6.6 billion, accounting for the most overall e-commerce growth (16.5 percent year over year) of all the holiday season shopping days.

“One out of every six dollars this holiday season will be spent between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, leading to $19.7 billion in sales,” says Adobe.

To put the $107.4 billion in perspective, Adobe says the revenue that will be generated online this month and next will be enough to buy every team in the NFL, with $20 billion still to spare.

2017 holiday e-commerce forecast

Adobe did a deep dive into its Cyber Monday forecasts, predicting that most shoppers will go online between 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. local time to purchase gifts. The report also claims that online conversion rates reach their annual peak the last hour of Cyber Monday — representing four times the average conversion rate.

2017 Cyber Monday sales cycle

Adobe says email marketing will drive the largest volume of sales during the Black Friday to Cyber Monday shopping period, outperforming paid search, organic search and display.

Not only does Adobe forecast that online holiday sales will surpass $100 billion this year, it also reports most retail website visits will happen on mobile versus desktops.

“For the first time, consumers will visit retailer websites from mobile devices more than desktops,” claims Adobe. While holiday gift research may start on mobile, Adobe still predicts two-thirds of holiday e-commerce sales will happen on a desktop.

Adobe forecasts its holiday e-commerce numbers based on aggregated, anonymous data pulled from its Adobe Experience Cloud and Adobe Analytics Cloud products, with predictions based on analysis of 1 trillion visits to more than 4,500 retail websites and 55 million SKUs.

Last year, Adobe predicted online holiday sales would reach $91 billion. According to its own numbers, November and December online holiday sales totaled $91.7 billion by year’s end. The National Retail Federation reported much higher numbers, claiming 2016’s online holiday sales reached $122 billion.

About The Author

Amy Gesenhues

Amy Gesenhues is Third Door Media’s General Assignment Reporter, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs.com, SoftwareCEO.com, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy’s articles.