Jan. 12 (UPI) -- Americans spent more than $200 billion in online sales over the holiday shopping period , a solid increase over 2020, an analytics report said Wednesday.
Adobe Analytics, which tracks holiday spending, said that shoppers spent $204.5 billion in the period between Nov. 1 and Jan. 1. That's an increase of 8.6% over the same period in 2020, the final online holiday sales report said.
Adobe said shoppers spread out their buying over various days, rather than doing it on special sale-designated days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
The report said that online shoppers spent $3 billion per day for a record 38 days -- compared to 25 in 2020.
For the period between Nov. 1 and Thanksgiving, sales grew by more than 19% over last year, Adobe said. Sales for "cyber week," the five days between Thanksgiving and the following Monday, were down 1.4% -- and sales for the month of December rose by more than 5%.
"This holiday shopping season was the first time where big promotional moments like Cyber Monday and Black Friday took on less of the spotlight," Taylor Schreiner, senior director of Adobe Digital Insights, said in a statement.
"Like we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic, e-commerce has become a ubiquitous daily activity and a flexible way for shoppers to navigate product availability and higher prices."
Supply chain challenges did not dissuade holiday shoppers online, Adobe said. However, the impact on inventories was clear. Shoppers saw 6 billion "out of stock" messages online over the holiday period, a rise of more than 250% over 2019.