5 ways that this year’s ‘Cyber Monday’ shook up logistics

U.S. Retailers brought in nearly US$6.6 billion on Cyber Monday alone, according to Adobe’s estimates. But what makes this year different is that sales extended out in both directions, meaning that the weeks before and after also racked up record numbers. If consumers weren’t waiting in the cold for stores to open, retailers figured, they would be just as happy shopping for deals on their own terms, and timelines. They were right. Adobe found that digital sales between November 23-26, Thanksgiving week in the United States, hit a record high, bringing in $13 billion in digital sales, up 14.4 percent year-over-year (y-o-y).

There’s a logistics component to that trend, as well. If retailers are staggering their sales, that eliminates the sorts of surges that ended up causing the bedlam of 2013’s holiday season, when the major integrators weren’t able to get packages to consumers, because volume exceeded capacity.