For years, retailers have trained online shoppers to visit their websites on Cyber Monday, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, to get the best deals. This year, at least, waiting for Cyber Monday won't work.
That's because online prices will actually hit bottom much earlier--just as you're about to dig into turkey, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. Thanksgiving Day itself will likely offer the best prices of the entire holiday shopping season, according to a forecast from Adobe. The average discount will be 24%, the company predicts.
What's driving the early sales by online retailers is the realization that people more than ever are shopping on their mobile devices--especially when they're bored waiting for the turkey to roast. "It's all about mobile," says Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst with Adobe Digital Index, which compiled the annual online shopping forecast. Some 31% of online sales on Thanksgiving will be via smartphones and tablets, says Adobe, up from 21% last year.
The earlier shopping push is also partly about retailers wanting to get an early read on what will be a relatively short season between Thanksgiving and Christmas. "Retailers will be telling everyone to shop earlier online," Gaffney says, in order to get data that can improve their ability to target late-season marketing.
In fact, the whole Thanksgiving week looks pretty good for shopping cheap. Based on data it has collected from companies that use its marketing services, Adobe says, the average item will be 20% off during Thanksgiving week overall. That's pretty apparent from all the Black Friday (and pre-Black Friday) sales clogging your email box.
All that is pointing to Cyber Monday sales fading as a marketing tactic. "Cyber Monday is becoming less of the main day for online shopping," Gaffney says. "Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving, the traditional start of the brick-and-mortar shopping season) is much bigger on mobile than Cyber Monday."
To be precise, online spending on Thanksgiving will jump 27% from a year ago, Black Friday will surpass that a bit with a 28% rise, and Cyber Monday will lag with a 15% bump.
Despite that trend, this year Cyber Monday will continue to be the biggest online shopping day of the year, with $2.6 billion in spending. But next year, the relentless advance of mobile devices may finally bring that reign to an end in favor of Black Friday. (I've predicted that for at least a couple of years, so I might finally be proven right.)
There's another big downside to waiting until Cyber Monday to shop: You may not be able to buy what you want at any price. Out-of-stock messages on retail websites are expected to jump fivefold by Cyber Monday as early-bird shoppers get their iPhone 6s, Playstation 4s, Rokus, Call of Duty games, and Frozen dolls--all among the likely top gifts.
Adobe claims its forecasts were within 1% of the actual results in previous years, thanks to wide use of its Marketing Cloud services by the top 500 U.S. retailers.
