50 Million Americans Ready to Shop Today

A record 50 million American adults are planning to shop today—“Cyber Monday”—according to data released by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA).

Today’s shopping frenzy follows a record Black Friday Week in which 136 million American adults shopped online or planned to shop online from the Monday before Thanksgiving through today, an increase of 6 percent over 2015, according to CTA’s 2016 Post Black Friday Survey. Three-quarters (76 percent) shopped in physical stores and 57 percent shopped online. Of those who shopped online, 43 percent did so via desktop or laptop, while 35 percent used a mobile device, up 7 percent over last year.

"The 2016 holiday shopping season is the tipping point for mobile shopping," said Shawn DuBravac, Ph.D., chief economist, CTA. "Consumers are shifting increasingly to mobile shopping, due to higher ownership rates of mobile devices and increasing ease, comfort and convenience. Online deals permeated the entire Black Friday Week, with retailers often matching in-store deals and doing so earlier online.”

Despite the trend toward mobile, DuBravac said shoppers are still mostly heading to physical stores to shop for tech devices.

The CTA survey shows a record year for tech with 61.7 million American adults buying or planning to buy tech devices—an increase of 25 percent over last year. Most of those surveyed bought or plan to shop in brick-and-mortar stores.

Not surprisingly, TVs top CTA’s Top 10 list of tech purchases:

1. Televisions
2. Tablets
3. Smartphones
4. Videogame consoles
5. Tech accessories
6. Laptops
7. Headphones
8. DVD/Blu-ray Players
9. Portable Bluetooth speakers
10. Digital Toys

"While perennial Black Friday tech strongholds such as televisions, videogame consoles, and laptops dominated shoppers' baskets, it was also a breakout year for emerging tech," DuBravac said. "These nascent devices, including digital assistant devices, virtual reality, and drones, landed on the front page of retailer's Black Friday ads—and in shopper's baskets— for the first time this year."

Total tech spending during the entire holiday shopping season is expected to increase 3 percent to reach a record $36 billion in 2016, according to CTA’s holiday season outlook. Total online holiday sales are expected to grow by 16.4 percent to just over $84 billion, while online sales via mobile devices will grow by 45.2 percent to $20 billion.

More Americans than last year say they will be completely done (14 percent) or mostly finished (42 percent) with holiday shopping by the end of the week. On the other hand, 7 percent say they have not started shopping, 15 percent have barely started, and 22 percent say they still have a lot more shopping left to do.

Survey results are based on telephone interviews conducted November 25 and 26 among a random sample of 1,002 U.S. adults.

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