Jan 20, 2025

Credit: Getty Images by svetikd A monster December propelled holiday e-commerce sales growth to the heights predicted at the beginning of the fourth quarter rush. Despite analysts' spot-on call there, a lookback shows that very little else about the season was easy to foresee. Online spending was up 24 percent in December over 2023, according to Signifyd data, largely because the month benefited from the glow of Cyber Monday, which landed in November the previous year. Overall holiday sales increased 7 percent, meeting Signifyd’s preseason projection, with the beauty and cosmetics and general merchandise categories having exceptionally strong showings. That said, the season, spanning October through December, could hardly be called “predictable.” Consumers continued to determinedly chase value, essentially changing the shape of the holiday season. Cyber Week is Big, But is its Star Fading? Cyber Week, naturally, continued to be the main event in 2024, drawing record online sales of $41.1 billion , according to Adobe. The shop-until-you-drop crowd fueled online spending growth of between 6 percent and 8 percent for the long Thanksgiving weekend, depending on the source. Signifyd’s data showed 7 percent year-over-year growth , Adobe put the number at 8.2 percent, and Salesforce’s figure came in at 7 percent . While the numbers vary because each company relies on different data sets, the consistent takeaway is that while Cyber Week is incredibly important when it comes to holiday sales, it may not have the same star power as it has in years past. The 7 percent growth for the week that Signifyd reported, for instance, is no better than the holiday season as a whole. Of course, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are still crucial given the sheer volume of sales they rack up. It’s hard to argue that a five-day period when, according to USA Today, 75 percent of the U.S. adult population shopped , isn’t an important stretch for retail. (Interesting to note that the number of consumers who shopped online and the number who shopped in-store were nearly evenly split , according to the National Retail Federation.) However, it’s also apparent that shoppers won’t wait for Thanksgiving to kick off their serious shopping. If You Discount, They Will Come “We saw a dramatic year-over-year boost in e-commerce sales the week before Cyber Week — much bigger than the increase during Cyber Week itself,” said Signifyd Senior Data Analyst Phelim Killough. “Our data also showed that the number of significant deals doubled that week, offering the best prices of the year on a significant number of items. As we’ve seen for some time, consumers are not solely focused on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Value-oriented shoppers will shop when they see the deals they like and when their busy lives allow.” E-commerce sales the week before Cyber Week soared by 15.7 percent YoY, according to Signifyd data, handily beating the growth seen during Cyber Week by anybody’s measure. And the percentage of items selling at their lowest price of the year increased to 20 percent from 11 percent the previous week. In fact, super-growth weeks — i.e., weeks that easily outpaced Cyber Week in terms of annual sales increases — were scattered throughout the season. Three out of the four full weeks of December registered sales growth topping 10 percent, with the week following Cyber Week leading the pack, rising 11.2 percent YoY. December Was a Powerhouse for Holiday Season Shopping Looking at sales for the full month, sales in every retail category grew compared to 2023, with the beauty and cosmetics and general merchandise categories (essentially online department stores) both topping 40 percent increases. Only electronics saw less-than-double-digit percentage growth with sales up 6 percent over December 2023 sales. No doubt any monthly or seasonal sales analysis is subject to the quirks of the calendar. The compressed time to shop between this year’s late Thanksgiving and Christmas likely played a role in consumers’ prolific spending before Cyber Week, Killough said. He noted that shoppers typically are accustomed to intensifying their holiday shopping earlier in November — not waiting for the last two days of the month. The question now is what all this shape-shifting means for retailers going forward. For one thing, for online merchants it’s worth examining promotional strategies tied to Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Cyber Week. While some discounting on the big shopping holidays will no doubt be required, it’s possible that retailers can do just as well, or presumably better, by strategically pushing some of their best deals outside of the long-running red-letter shopping days. Mike Cassidy is head of PR and storytelling at  Signifyd , a commerce protection provider.