LOS ANGELES—E-commerce sales the weekend after Thanksgiving were up 17% this year over last year, according to CBRE, and Cyber Monday alone saw an 8.5% increase in sales this year over last year. The significant increase in sales is great news for the industrial market, which will serve e-commerce sites that need to store products and process online sales.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, the average online order size was $124. Although Cyber Monday saw a nice increase in sales volume, the increase was significantly smaller than the 20.6% increase between 2012 and 2013. This is perhaps because Cyber Monday has become a week of cyber sales. Over the five-day cyber week, sales were up 12.6%. “The shift from single day events—Black Friday and Cyber Monday—to a longer term event—Cyber Week—is significant in that it illustrates a little bit of the evolution of the retailer mindset,” Gary Baragona, director of research and analysis at CBRE, tells GlobeSt.com. “Retailers are continuing to find ways to give the customer multiple options and opportunities to purchase products—whether purchased from the stores or online on a single day or over the course of the full week. The customer has more options and retailers are benefitting with increased sales volumes.”

Looking at individual retailers, department store online components reported a 17.9% increase in online sales, while Walmart, not sharing exact numbers, said that it experienced its most successful Cyber Monday to date. These brick-and-mortar retailers were able to reap the benefits of online shopping and in-store shopping by developing omni-channel strategies. “It's not a one versus the other scenario—meaning online sales versus brick and mortar sales. A successful retailer is going to evolve their strategy to include all avenues for the consumer to purchase their products,” says Baragona. “Retailers are implementing an omni-channel retail strategy that focuses on ensuring a seamless customer experience, offering the ability to buy a product anywhere at any time and on any device. Although in many cases, this strategy may shift the point of sale away from the showroom floor to fulfillment centers, it allows a retailer to provide a positive customer experience and lead to higher sales and repeat business.”

This increase in spending will have a significant effect on industrial sales throughout the nation. This year alone, e-commerce users leased more than 35 million square feet in industrial facilities, and CBRE expects at least that amount in 2015, especially with the increase in online sales. “The growth of online sales is continuing to spur an increase in demand for e-commerce users,” says Baragona. In order to keep up with the growing demand, e-commerce companies are making significant investments in their supply chain, including newer, larger and more state-of-the-art facilitates near major metropolitan areas. This is having a significant impact on new development projects as more and more requirements are coming to market from e-commerce users.” At the end of last year, CBRE likewise predicted that industrial absorption would be up through 2014. With e-commerce fueling demand, it is clear that industrial demand will continue to be strong in the coming year.

In addition to fueling industrial demand, there are also significant economic benefits. Aside from the obvious benefit of consumer spending, UPS and FedEx have also announced that they will add a combined total of 150,000 seasonal jobs due to the increased holiday demand. That is twice the number of seasonal jobs that they offered last year.