Cyber Five Sales Mixed: Amazon Leads Pack With Top Categories Beauty, Kitchen, Toys

Cyber Five Online sales in the U.S. showed mixed results, with Adobe Analytics reporting a 7.8% year-over-year increase to $38 billion, exceeding Adobe's $37.2 billion forecast.

Cyber Monday alone generated $12.4 billion, surpassing expectations. However, Salesforce data indicated a lower growth rate, with Cyber Five sales up by only 5% and Cyber Monday sales increasing by 3% overall.

Discount levels varied, with electronics peaking at 31% and apparel at 23%.

Some retailers like Amazon.com Inc AMZN and Walmart Inc WMT offered discounts up to 60% on specific items.

The average discount rate remained similar to last year, slightly increasing from 27% to 28%.

Over 200 million consumers shopped during the week — a 2% increase from the previous year. Up to 134.2 million shoppers were online, marking a 3% increase.

Mastercard's data suggests a shift towards online shopping, indicating an improving market share from offline retail.

Amazon reported a record sale of 1 billion items between Nov. 17 and Nov. 27, with top-selling categories including beauty, home kitchen, and toys. The company's new Buy with Prime feature, allowing purchases off-site, saw a 300% increase in units sold during promotional activities compared to October's daily average. Amazon plans to continue its sales event until Dec. 24, indicating strong consumer response and hinting at potential margin risks, which logistics efficiencies and cost savings could mitigate.

The data suggests a positive consumer response to online sales events, with a shift back to online purchasing. Wayfair Inc W, too, is expected to benefit from this trend, given its inventory availability, competitive pricing, and improved delivery speeds through CastleGate.

Bank of America analyst Justin Post reiterated a Buy rating on Amazon with a price target of $168 and Wayfair with a price target of $72.

Price Actions: AMZN shares traded lower by 0.08% at $146.92 on the last check Wednesday. W shares traded higher by 2.02% at $58.16.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay