Walmart introduces Cyber Monday Deals early with a free pick-up is store starting today. With a higher than expected off-take Adobe predicts that Cyber Monday will be the single largest online sales day of the year breaking USD 3 Billion mark, with a 12 percent YOY growth.

“US consumers have turned into digital shopping ninjas this holiday season as retailers continue to adjust to a huge influx of smartphone shoppers,” said Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst, Adobe Digital Index. “Heading into Cyber Monday, online only retailers will take center stage and we are still calling for Cyber Monday to be the largest online day of the year, breaking the $3 billion mark and representing 12 percent YoY growth.”

According to Internet retailer, “U.S. e-retailers collected USD 4.47 billion online on Thanksgiving and Friday, an increase of 18 percent over the same period a year ago, according to Adobe Inc.’s Digital Index and ahead of the overall 15 percent growth pace estimated by the U.S. Commerce Department.”

Amazon Leads The Social Buzz

With online deals starting early on Amazon and engaging Social Media posts, Amazon and Xbox led the Conversations on Social Media channels over the past seven days for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Taking the social media conversations a step forward to engage audiences, Brands are creating unique and interactive user experience with Messaging Apps. Amazon’s My Holiday Story is UGC first on Messaging Apps inviting users to share their holiday stories.

According to AdWeek, Target has increased the spend on Social Media channels with the budget being spent on Social Media being increased to 12 percent, a 30 percent increase over last year.

“Holiday this year represents Target’s most ambitious social spend for a single campaign,” said Colleen McDuffe, senior director of social media at Target. “For the first time, Target will be leveraging Snapchat to engage our guests during the holidays.”

For engaging users Target has introduced a Thanksgiving themed Geo-filter on Snapchat that users can accessorize the images with and starting December 1 a new Geo-filter will be released until Christmas.

Email Top Traffic Source

Email messages accounted for 25 percent of site visits on Black Friday, according to Custora that analyzes data for more than 200 retail sites. Email took the top place as source of traffic, followed by organic search 21.1 percent, direct traffic 17.4 percent, paid search 16.3 percent, affiliate marketing 12.3 percent, other 5.1 percent, social media 1.7 percent and display advertising 1.1 percent. “The fact that once again this year, email marketing was the top online marketing channel on Black Friday shows how important email is to winning in e-commerce during the holiday season, and throughout the year,” says Corey Pierson, Custora CEO.

Gift Cards

Gift Cards a large slice of retail spend category for Holiday Season, though often dubbed as a last-minute gift, is preferred for the flexibility in usage.

Retailers vying for slice of Holiday Spend have launched deals to coincide with the leading online sales days, to build awareness for Gift Cards with the Holiday Shoppers.

Some of the key days for Shopping which are expected to be the leading sale days online and offline.