Online Holiday Sales Up 17%

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.”