Cyber Monday Shopping Sales Up 30%

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Online shopping for Cyber Monday jumped 30 percent this year, according to a new study from IBM.

According to the study, 18 percent of shoppers used a mobile device to check out a retailer's website for Cyber Monday deals. IBM says that 7 percent of shoppers used an iPad for their shopping experience. The study found that iPads made up 90 percent of tablet shopping traffic for Cyber Monday.

Strategy Director for IBM Smarter Commerce Jay Henderson told ClickZ that the reason for the increase in consumer shopping is because of the types of consumers who use iPads.

"That's one reason why [we] see more tablet traffic because of the iPad," said Henderson.

"You combine [the iPad's] early adoption with the natural buyers of iPads who tend to be people who buy with higher discretion."

Multi-screen shopping is on the rise, according to IBM's Cyber Monday Report 2012. The study found that over 58 percent of Cyber Monday shoppers on a mobile device used smartphones this year. While 41.9 percent of mobile consumers used a tablet during their 2012 Cyber Monday shopping experience.

Henderson says that optimizing shopping experiences for each mobile device is an important step for marketers. He believes that marketers can no longer think in terms of just mobile.

"Marketers need to customize their web experience for mobile devices. That means both tablets and smartphones," continued Henderson. "You need to make that a very fluid experience on smartphones, as well as on iPads and other high quality tablets."

While mobile devices offered consumers a compelling way to shop on Cyber Monday, consumers failed to use social media to find deals. IBM says that social networking only generated 0.41 percent of Cyber Monday sales. The mark represented a 26 percent decrease from this time last year.

IBM's study also found that Black Friday sales failed to receive help from social media. According to the study, 34 percent of Black Friday shoppers were referred from social networks. IBM says the score represented a 35 percent decrease from last year.

On an industry sales basis, department stores saw the greatest jump in Cyber Monday sales. IBM reported that consumer spending at department store websites grew by over 43 percent on Cyber Monday 2012. Home goods saw the second highest amount of growth with a 26.8 percent leap.

IBM's study uses the firm's IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark solution to collect and analyze consumer data. The company's solution is cloud-based and aims to offer real-time sales data to marketers.

Cyber Monday image on home page via Shutterstock.