Another year, another Cyber Monday online shopping frenzy has wrapped up. But this year, Cyber Monday sales are projected to set new records. While many online retailers will be sharing in the bounty, one in particular stands to make a killing: Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). As a result, AMZN stock hit record highs on Cyber Monday, at one point surging over 7% from the previous Monday.
It’s given some of that back, but AMZN stock is still up nearly 7% in just seven days. Here are the sales projections that are driving the surge.
Cyber Monday Sales Predicted to Hit New Record
Adobe Insights — a division of Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:ADBE) — tracks online sales based on data collected from the top 100 online retailers. Last year, the company’s numbers for Cyber Monday sales were $5.6 billion. Despite that, at this time last year, AMZN sock was actually going in the opposite direction, slumping because record Cyber Monday shopping numbers just weren’t big enough.
This year, Adobe Insights was forecasting Cyber Monday sales would hit $6.5 billion, another new record and well into double-digit growth over its numbers from last year. However, after tracking online shopping data for most of Cyber Monday, the firm revised that estimate upward to $6.59 billion. That would represent growth of over 17% for the year. Those are the kind of numbers that move retailer stocks — even a retailer as massive as Amazon — and we’re seeing that investor confidence reflected in AMZN stock.
Add in Black Friday Sales
Black Friday 2017 also set online sales records, and it looks as though Amazon absolutely dominated on that front. According to Business Insider, Amazon snagged between 45% and 50% of all Black Friday online sales.
If Amazon also dominated Cyber Monday sales to the same degree? That’s not Alibaba Singles Day money — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) racked up $25 billion in online sales in just 24 hours earlier this month — but it’s still pretty impressive. And should be good enough to keep AMZN stock in record territory.
What About Next Year?
Clearly, the move to online shopping isn’t slowing and these big online shopping events — Black Friday, Cyber Monday (and let’s not forget Amazon’s own Prime Day, which saw a whopping 60% sales increase this year) — are commanding a bigger slice of the consumer spending pie every year. However, Amazon is facing increased competition as traditional retailers pivot in an attempt to fight back.
In particular, Wal-Mart Stores Inc (NYSE:WMT) put considerable effort and resources into boosting its web presence, tripling the number of items it offers for online shopping in time for Black Friday. That effort may not have gone smoothly, but it’s not giving up any time soon. Of course, Amazon isn’t exactly sitting still either. Besides slashing prices and adding new Amazon prime perks, the company is also constantly tweaking its online shopping experience. The most recent move was AR View, augmented reality shopping in its iOS app.
We’ll find out just how well Amazon actually did on Cyber Monday (and Black Friday) once the company releases official numbers. In the meantime, surging AMZN stock has pushed CEO Jeff Bezos’ net worth past $100 billion, so at least someone is making a killing from this holiday shopping frenzy.
As of this writing, Brad Moon did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
