According to Adobe's report, online spending on “Online Shopping Monday” reached 13.3 billion US dollars this year. Compared with Online Shopping Monday in 2023, spending increased by 7.3%, exceeding the online spending amount of 10.8 billion US dollars on Black Friday.

According to media reports, sales in physical stores on Black Friday have remained sluggish in recent years, and consumers mainly buy various holiday products online, from electronic products to toys. Experts say this year's discounts are even stronger, and consumers are waiting for those days when promotions are strong. Target, for example, said its “Two-Day Cyber Monday” campaign starts on Sunday and offers 50% off thousands of products, including video games, home decor, and other tech products.

Currently, sales figures for the US holiday shopping season are mixed, and consumption in physical stores on Black Friday is relatively lackluster. According to preliminary estimates from payment processing company Mastercard, physical store sales increased by only 0.7% year over year on Friday. Meanwhile, data from data company Facteus showed that sales actually declined.

But online, retailers like Walmart and Amazon rely on generative AI customer service and search capabilities to help consumers find products more easily on websites and mobile apps.

Caila Schwartz, director of consumer research at Salesforce, said that generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools can answer online shoppers' basic questions about product inquiries and help retailers protect profit margins in the face of rising costs.

According to Salesforce estimates, retailers using generative artificial intelligence tools for customer service increased their users' purchase rates by 15% on Saturday. Schwartz said that this higher “conversion rate” (conversion rate) may change the online shopping ecosystem. Adobe said that from Black Friday to the weekend, retail website traffic from chatbots or users clicking on website links increased 1950% on Online Shopping Monday.

Furthermore, according to Salesforce data, sales of the “Cyber Weekend” online shopping event (Cyber Weekend) prior to Cyber Monday increased 9%, up from 6% in 2023. Despite this, the average discount rate in the US this year is 2% lower than last year, to only 28%.

Schwartz said, “Despite consumer expectations and careful planning for 'Online Shopping Week', this year's discounts have not fully met expectations. Despite this, consumers have continued to shop heavily to date, demonstrating their resilience and enthusiasm to seize seasonal offers.”

Online Shopping Monday was first proposed by the US National Retail Federation (National Retail Federation) in 2005, when online shopping had just begun to rise. Online Shopping Monday was initially a shopping event launched by e-commerce companies in an attempt to take advantage of the Black Friday shopping boom. At the time, Black Friday was almost entirely a world of offline shopping. The original intention was that after taking a break on Thursday and Friday during the Thanksgiving holiday, plus the weekend, American consumers can use their work computers to place orders using the emerging internet when they return to the office on Monday.

Today, however, everyone can access the Internet via mobile phones, and most e-commerce transactions are completed via mobile phones. Coupled with the fact that many online discount campaigns begin a few days before Thanksgiving and continue even after the holiday season is over, consumers no longer need to wait until Monday to find deals.

As a result, the number of consumers shopping online on Black Friday has surpassed that of Online Shopping Monday since 2019.