Cyber Monday proved to be hugely popular with US consumers, with almost $2bn spent online in 24 hours.
And new stats from Monetate show that the increasingly important role that tablets are playing in the post-Thanksgiving shopping bonanza.
The data shows that conversion rates on the iPad on Cyber Monday were over 6%, more than 2% higher than any other day during the Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday period.
Furthermore, tablet conversion rates (5.84%) actually exceeded conversion rates on desktop (5.51%).
In 2011, the numbers were 5.48% on tablet and 5.98% on desktop.
Tablet vs. traditional (desktop) conversion rates on Cyber Monday
Monetate’s stats add to the growing body of evidence which shows that traffic from tablet users is extremely valuable for e-commerce sites.
Data from Affiliate Window shows that iPad conversion rates are double that of desktop, and almost twice as high as other mobile devices.
The average conversion rate for iPad on Affiliate Window’s network was 3.82% in August, compared to 1.9% for desktop.
Similarly, data from Adobe shows that tablet visitors to e-commerce sites spend 20% more than desktop shoppers, and twice as much as those using smartphones.
However it should be noted that tablet users make up a small proportion of total visits in Adobe’s study, accounting for just 4% on average.
Even so, it comes as no surprise that there is now a growing trend for businesses to design their new websites specifically for tablet and mobile.
Looking just at traffic levels, Monetate’s stats show that total mobile traffic (smartphones and tablets) exceeded 21% of overall web traffic on peak days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday.
Mobile vs. traditional (desktop) traffic on Cyber Monday
During workday hours mobile traffic was 16.6% of overall web traffic on Black Friday and 10.58% on Cyber Monday; these numbers jump significantly during evening hours when mobile traffic spiked to 22.34% of overall web traffic on Black Friday and 18.18% on Cyber Monday.
For more data on this topic, check out our Black Friday and Cyber Monday stats roundup and these seven awesome infographics.
David Moth is a Senior Reporter at Econsultancy. You can follow him on Twitter or Google+.
