When Americans started celebrating Thanksgiving in the 19th century, it was about cherishing the blessings of the year, particularly the year’s harvest. These days however, it appears as if many people spend the holiday thinking about what they might need rather than what they already have.

Over the past few years, Thanksgiving weekend has grown to become a huge shopping extravaganza both on- and offline. Retailers try to outdo each other in offering the best Black Friday / Cyber Monday deals and consumers willingly jump at the chance to kick off their holiday shopping and snap up some bargains.

Not surprisingly, this year’s Thanksgiving weekend shattered online shopping records once again. According to Adobe Digital Insights, total e-commerce sales over the entire Thanksgiving weekend amounted to $34.4 billion, with Cyber Monday alone accounting for $10.8 billion of that total. That makes this year’s Cyber Monday the biggest online shopping day in U.S. history

Adobe stated that FOMO or “fear of missing out” was especially evident this year with the golden hour of retail (7pm to 11pm Pacific time) accounting for $2.7 billion in revenue, a quarter of the day’s total. The purchasing rate reached $12 million a minute during the peak hour between 8pm and 9pm on Monday.

source statista

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