The U.S. saw record Cyber Monday sales, with shoppers dropping $12.4 billion, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracked roughly 1 trillion retail website visits resulting in purchases of more than 100 million products. Top-selling items included Hot Wheels toys, Microsoft’s Xbox Series X game console, televisions and small kitchen appliances. Spending was up by 9.6 percent over last year’s event, according to Adobe, which crowned Cyber Monday 2023 “the biggest online shopping day of all time.” Although consumers continue to fret about the economy, sales were propelled by discounts and offers to “buy now, pay later.”

The record demonstrates “the continued resilience of consumers despite dwindling pandemic-era savings and high interest rates,” Bloomberg reports, noting that Adobe had adjusted its online spending forecast upward for Cyber Monday “based on stronger-than-expected spending on Black Friday and the popularity of buy-now-pay-later offerings that let shoppers stretch their budgets with credit.”

Buy now, pay later drove what Adobe Analytics estimates to be $940 million in Cyber Monday online spending, “up a staggering 42.5 percent year-over-year as consumers sought more flexible payment arrangements.”

Deep discounts on products ranging from beauty aids to toys and electronics drove sales throughout the Thanksgiving weekend, when U.S. shoppers spent about $38 billion online, according to Reuters, “signaling a strong holiday shopping season even as economic uncertainty swirled.”

U.S. sales surged by 7.8 percent for “Cyber Week, or the five days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday,” Reuters said, citing Adobe, outperforming what had originally been projected as a 5.4 percent rise.

Categorially, Adobe proclaimed apparel “a clear winner, with online sales growing 189 percent compared to an average day in October 2023.” Other strong categories: appliances (+166 percent) and toys (+140 percent), furniture (+129 percent), electronics (+103 percent), jewelry (+99 percent) and sporting goods (+95 percent).

Meanwhile, Amazon — which measured its extended Thanksgiving weekend performance in worldwide sales, says it had its best online shopping results ever. Although the e-retail giant didn’t share dollar amounts, it attempted to quantify volume in an Amazon press release stating that globally customers “purchased more than one billion items on Amazon” during its 11 days of deals (from November 17 through Cyber Monday) compared to the same period last year.”

Customers “bought millions of Amazon devices,” with Fire TV, Echo, and Ring as best-sellers, and “more than 500 million items from independent sellers” (including small businesses) were also sold.