Cyber Monday spending was reportedly down due to early shopping

Cyber Monday sales were down 1.4 percent year over year, according to a report from Adobe Analytics. Shoppers spent $10.7 billion this year, $100 million less than the $10.8 billion consumers spent in 2020.

Amazon’s holiday shopping report only backs Adobe’s claims that Cyber Monday sales took a dip — the commerce giant didn’t report that this year’s Cyber Monday was the “biggest” day of shopping as it has done in the past. In 2019, Amazon said that Cyber Monday was the platform’s “single biggest shopping day in the company’s history,” while in 2020, Thanksgiving weekend was described as the “largest holiday shopping season” in Amazon history.

This time around, there was no mention of Amazon having the best shopping day or season in its history. Instead, Amazon boasted about having the biggest “kickoff to the holiday shopping season,” as well as a “record-breaking” Black Friday and Cyber Monday — but it didn’t specify which record it broke.

This follows the first decrease in spending on Black Friday, which Adobe attributes to shoppers taking advantage of sales and promotions earlier in the holiday season. It looks like the same early shopping trend also contributed to a dip in sales on Cyber Monday, as Adobe notes that people are getting their shopping done in October and November and are also nabbing in-demand products when they see them.

“With early deals in October, consumers were not waiting around for discounts on big shopping days like Cyber Monday and Black Friday,” said Taylor Schreiner, the director at Adobe Digital Insights. “This was further fueled by growing awareness of supply chain challenges and product availability. It spread out e-commerce spending across the months of October and November, putting us on track for a season that still will break online shopping records.”

From November 1st to the 29th, Adobe reports that shoppers have spent a total of $109.8 billion, an 11.9 percent increase from last year. So far, there have been 22 days where shoppers have spent over $3 billion, while it tracked only nine around this time in 2020.

Adobe says that AirPods, Apple Watches, Apple Pencils, the Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series S, Meta (formerly Oculus) Quest 2, as well as laptops from HP, Lenovo, and Dell, were some of the top sellers in tech during Cyber Monday.