Cyber Monday sales still on top but have lost some of their luster

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Shoppers traded bricks for clicks Monday, flocking online to snap up Cyber Monday deals on everything from cashmere sweaters to Star Wars toys.

Now that shoppers are online all the time anyway, the 10-year-old shopping holiday has lost some of its luster as online sales on Thanksgiving and Black Friday pick up. But enough shoppers have been trained to look for Cyber Monday- specific sales to ensure the holiday still will mean big bucks for retailers.

It’s too early for sales figures, but Monday still is expected to be the biggest online shopping day ever, likely racking up more than $3 billion in sales, according to comScore. Adobe, which tracks 200 million visitors to 4,500 retail websites, said $490 million had been spent online as of 10 a.m. E.T. on Monday, the latest data available. That’s 14 percent higher than a year ago.

“A lot of people wait to see if deals are better on Cyber Monday,” said Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru.

Some hot sellers were in scarce supply by early afternoon Monday. At Target, a Swagway hoverboard was sold out by early afternoon. The electronic transportation gadget had been $100 off at $399. Drones and some Star Wars toys were hard to find as well.

Adobe found 15 out of 100 product views returned an out-of-stock message as of 10 a.m., 21/2 times the normal rate.

There were a few brief outages at sites such as Neiman Marcus and Target, and online payments company PayPal reported a brief interruption in service.

Retailers have been touting online deals since the beginning of November. And they no longer wait for Monday to roll out Cyber Monday deals, either. Amazon started “Lightning Deals” on Saturday, and Wal-Mart beginning all of its Cyber offers on 8 p.m. Sunday.