Early Discounts Drive October Online Holiday Spending

US online shoppers spent heartily on holiday gifts in October as they took advantage of retailers’ early sales and steep discounts.

Total e-commerce sales for the month rose 6% year on year to $76.8 billion, and were up 14% over September’s figure, Adobe said last week. Stores offered special promotional events, including the year’s second Prime Day, and implemented flexible payment methods to lure customers in early.

“We continue to experience a challenging economic picture, where increasing costs for consumers has been seen across rising interest rates, inflation in food prices, resuming student loan repayments and more,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst for Adobe Digital Insights. “Despite the uncertainty in the macro-environment…data has shown that the consumer remains resilient heading into the big holiday season, and [consumers] are embracing every opportunity to manage their budgets in more efficient ways.”

Early holiday deals were most notable in the electronics category, where discounts went as high as 12%, and apparel, which saw reductions of up to 9%. Sporting goods, appliances, toys and home furniture also experienced price drops.

Consumers have spent a whopping $759 billion online since the start of the year, up 4.3% versus the same period in 2022, Adobe added. The data analytics group expects the best deals to take place around Cyber Week, which runs from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday.

Main image: A couple shopping online. (Shutterstock)