Online holiday shopping sales in the U.S. could surpass $200 billion this year

The epidemic that is raging is expected to have a huge impact on holiday shopping this year. According to Adobe's early predictions, many people will turn to the Internet to reduce exposure, while purchasing goods for loved ones in the same way. We're also likely to see many business merchants take advantage of this to offer various "retail therapy" deals. 

Adobe said on Wednesday that it expects online holiday sales in the United States to total a record $189 billion this year. If that does come true, it would represent a 33 percent year-over-year increase in online sales, roughly equivalent to two years of single-quarter growth.

 Moreover, online spending could even exceed $200 billion if the U.S. gets another stimulus check and brick-and-mortar retail stores experience a second round of shutdowns.

Adobe said in a recent study that online shopping week, usually from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, is expecting this year's November and December to turn into a rare "Network month". The analysis suggests that daily online sales will exceed $2 billion between Nov. 1 and Nov. 21, rising to $3 billion per day between Nov. 22 and Dec. 3. "Black Friday and Cyber Monday online sales will reach $10 billion and $12.7 billion respectively, up 39 percent and 35 percent year-over-year.”

How consumers will shop is arguably as telling as how much money they will spend, with Adobe expecting 42% of its online sales to come from shopping orders on mobile phones this year, up 55% from 2019.