Covered in detail within an IBM study released this morning, shoppers were out in force on sites like Amazon and Walmart yesterday, snapping up deals during Cyber Monday. Specifically, online shopping rose by 20.6% compared to 2012’s Cyber Monday.

The largest boost to retailers came from consumers on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Mobile traffic accounted for nearly a third of all online shoppers—that’s a 45% boost over 2012. Mobile sales accounted for 17 percent of all Cyber Monday online purchases this year, another significant increase year-over-year (55% higher than 2012).

Interestingly, smartphones drove nearly double the amount of online traffic compared to tablets, but tablet traffic drove more than double the sales for retailers compared to smartphones. Consumers on tablets also spent more money on average, specifically $126.30 per order compared to $106.49 per order on smartphones.

However, both of those figures were lower than the average order value of $128.77 for all Cyber Monday orders. In addition, consumers spent about 7.5 minutes per shopping session on tablets compared to just under 5 minutes on smartphones.

Once again, iOS devices dominated Android on Cyber Monday when it came to traffic, overall sales and the average order value. Specifically, iOS devices accounted for 22.4 percent of all online traffic, 14.5 percent of all online sales and the average order value was about $120. Alternatively, Android devices accounted for 9.1 percent of all online traffic, 2.6 percent of all online sales and the average order value was about $107.

An increase in push notifications year-over-year is likely one of the reasons that mobile shopping exploded this year. Retailers sent approximately 77 percent more push notifications to mobile devices between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday this year. The number of people that installed specific store applications also grew by 30% year-over-year.

When comparing Cyber Monday 2013 to Black Friday 2013, online sales jumped over 30%, but the average sale value dropped by about 5%. However, when Cyber Monday shoppers added a product to their shopping cart, they were 12.6% more likely to purchase the product compared to Black Friday online shoppers.

Cyber Monday sales rise 20% year-over-year, driven heavily by mobile

Ah, Black Friday: the mother lode of deals. It’s the day that bargain hunters wait for, either in snaking lines in the freezing cold or at their computers with a mouse in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

Black Friday and its younger sibling, Cyber Monday, are well known to all shoppers as the pinnacle of the shopping season. However, if you’re only circling the dates of November 28th (Black Friday 2013) and December 2nd (Cyber Monday 2013), then you will definitely be missing out on a wide spectrum of online deals that will be available in the month of November.

Expanded Shopping Window

The entire month of November is now open season for stores targeting customers’ wallets. It has become so competitive that retailers are no longer waiting for Black Friday or even Thanksgiving to roll out their best deals of the year. The last few years, online electronics seller Newegg has promoted “Black November” on November 1st, kickstarting an entire month of best-of-the-year offers. Amazon has their “Black Friday Week” starting on November 22nd this year and will be counting down to that date with various offers throughout the entire month of November.

At Ben’s Bargains, we invite you to visit our Black Friday 2013 Hub which we will launch on Monday, November 4th and will be showcasing all the best deals of the month as they appear, 24/7! Plus, we’ll have a cheat sheet of the best in-store Black Friday deals and buyers’ guides to the hottest gifts this holiday season.

Here’s a look at some prime shopping deals in November:

Cheap Media

Crazy doorbusters are par for the course on Black Friday, and cheap DVDs, Blu-rays and older video games are typically among the loss leaders that retailers will dangle to customers to get them into their stores or onto their sites.

Expect popular Blu-ray movies at $5 a pop or even less from sites like Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, JR.com and the Warner Bros. online shop. Amazon will discount movies and music the last week of November at different times of the day. Sign up for their emails or even better, peruse their Twitter feeds to get notice of every single deal.

Popular new video games (less than 6 months old) are rarely as cheap as movies during November, but you’ll see stores like GameStop and Amazon pricing select new titles at the sweet spot of $25 to $30 for a limited time. However, don’t expect the new platform titles (Xbox One or PS4) to be discounted, but you may see promotional gift cards bundled with these games at full price from Newegg and Amazon.

Don’t forget magazines: online magazine seller DiscountMags will most likely have its once-a-year sale with 2-year subscriptions at $8 for dozens of magazines.

Discounted iTunes Gift Cards

Speaking of cheap media, November is the time when you start to see select retailers discounting iTunes gift cards. iTunes cards make great gifts for anyone in the Apple ecosystem, because they can be applied towards music, iOS apps, Mac apps, iBooks and more. You will see iTunes cards discounted from 20% up to as much as 30% off in some cases. Walmart, Best Buy and even Safeway (but not Apple, see below) are known to heavily discount iTunes cards at this time of year. Don’t pass up an opportunity to grab these great stocking stuffers.

November is also a great time to find discounted gift cards at other stores like Nike and Home Depot from online gift card discounter Raise.com.

Snag That Big Screen Television

You will see the best prices of the year on HDTVs, laptops and tablets hands-down. However, don’t expect they will appear only on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Because the landscape is so competitive among retailers, expect to see once-a-year, one-off deals peppered throughout the month of November.

November is about three-quarters through the HDTV model year, and there will be big discounts. If you miss them, don’t expect similar deals to come around till February 2014 when the new model year TVs come out and the 2013 models need to be liquidated. While 42-inch televisions will likely be around similar prices to last year, expect larger discounts on televisions in the 47-inch range. Of course, you will see the lowest prices on off-brand televisions, but keep an eye out for middle-of-the-road brands like Vizio for the best combination of build quality and features.

Gadget Nirvana

We are not quite midway through the life cycle of the current 4th generation of Intel (Haswell) computers, so you won’t be seeing big price drops on those PCs. For 3rd generation and older PCs, you will see crazy prices with Core i3 laptops below $300 and Core i5 at $350 to $400. Lenovo, Dell and HP will have the best prices of the year on all of their laptops. And because PCs are facing increasingly stiff competition from tablets, you may see some of the best laptop deals in 2013 that we’ve seen in years.

While tablets are sitting pretty and regular prices continue to fall, the holidays should serve up some exciting tablet deals, as well. Amazon is known to discount their Kindle line this time of year, including their newest models, and eBay is certain to have prices on brand-new, popular tablets like the Google Nexus 7 at 10% to 15% off anywhere else.

Also, keep an eye out for tablets sporting Intel’s new Bay Trail processor, especially if you are in the market for a Windows tablet this year. The Bay Trail has impressive performance and a low price point that will give the Apple iPad some serious competition this year.

Apple Discounts

The Apple Store Black Friday sale gets a mention only because new Apple products are so rarely discounted.  During their one-day Black Friday sale, Apple Store will offer very modest discounts between 5% to 15% on their products with their iPad line at the low end of that spectrum.

If you’re hoping to save a few more bucks, you can wait for the eBay deals that we normally feature on a weekly basis which have similar or slightly better discounts on brand-new iPads from top sellers. As for Macs, Best Buy is likely to offer slightly better deals than Apple Store’s Black Friday deals, and you may even see them in early November.

The Usual Suspects

It almost goes without saying that the best time of the year to buy clothes and toys is November and December. If you’re looking for a specific toy or brand of clothing, you absolutely must set up a Ben’s Bargains deal alert because we will be working hard over the next several weeks to bring you the very best clothing and toy deals out there on the web.

You will also be able to find tons of great deals on kitchen cookware as well as tools for the garage over the next several weeks. Look for the best deals toward the end of the month as well as early December.

Don’t Forget Deal Alerts

If you want to make sure you don’t miss any upcoming November and Black Friday deals on Ben’s Bargains, don’t forget to set up deal alerts (registration required). You’ll receive an instant email and get the first chance to jump on a once-a-year, one-off deal before it disappears. And the Ben’s Best deals are gone fast!

You’re also welcome to send us tips or suggestions. Good luck and don’t forget to stop by Ben’s Bargains every day in November for the best deals of the year!

– Mike Flacy contributed to this report.

Waste Not, Want Not: Best Deals to Buy in November

Retailers, shoppers and employees are on-board for another early start to Black Friday on Thanksgiving.

Did you know there are just 25 shopping days between Black Friday and Christmas this year? That’s nearly a 20% decrease in shopping time over the 2012 holiday shopping season. With the shortest shopping period between Black Friday and Christmas in the last 10 years, retailers and consumers are beginning to ramp up for an even earlier start this holiday season.

For example, Macy’s recently announced select retail locations will be open at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving to get a jump on Black Friday. That’s the first time in Macy’s 100+ year existence that the company will open on Thanksgiving, likely an attempt to compete with retail giants like Walmart and Target that have been progressively opening earlier in more locations over the last ten years.

Of course, retailers have good reason to open earlier and offer aggressive sales during November. Both the National Retail Foundation (NRF) and Accenture are predicting spending increases among consumers this year, specifically 3.9% and 11% respectively. The NRF’s prediction is slightly higher than the actual sales growth of 3.5% from 2012.

Here at Ben’s Bargains, we conducted our 2013 Holiday Shopping Survey with a respondent pool of approximately 3,000 consumers drawn from our core users. When asked if they planned to spend more or less this holiday season, 82% said they would spend the same amount of money or more this year. When asked how much they plan to spend on gifts this year, over half of consumers plan to spend a minimum of $500 and 18% will spend upwards of $1,000 this holiday season.

Which Stores Want You to Skip the Tryptophan?

As mentioned previously, Macy’s was one of the first retail stores to announce a Thanksgiving Day opening time. Other stores that are publicly on board with early opening times include J.C. Penney and Kohl’s. It’s also likely that Target, Walmart, Sears, Kmart and Toys ‘R Us will have a Thanksgiving night opening in order to repeat last year’s success. Last year, most large retailers opened between 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving night to kick off Black Friday sales.

Thanksgiving openings were definitely a success for retailers last year with over 35 million consumers hitting the stores or shopping online. According to an NRF study of the 2012 shopping season, that’s approximately a 20% increase in traffic over the previous year. If the same growth rate continues this year, retailers could see upwards of 40 to 45 million consumers hitting stores and logging onto sites on Thanksgiving night. Our survey data also points to another big sales day on Thanksgiving with less than 4 out of 10 consumers wanting retailers to stay out of Thanksgiving.

In a statement regarding Kohl’s early opening, chief customer officer Michelle Gass said:

“Shopping over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend has become a much-anticipated tradition enjoyed with friends and family. As many customers are eager to get a jump start on their shopping, we are opening our stores at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day as a convenience to our customers who want to make Kohl’s their first stop.”

Beyond Thanksgiving Day, retailers are likely to have a strong Black Friday weekend as well. According to our survey data, over a third of consumers will start their holiday shopping between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In addition, 97% of survey respondents will be using online shopping, either mobile or desktop, on Black Friday to snag great deals.

Shoppers are Leading the Charge to Earlier Sales

This retail push into Turkey Day and even earlier sales during the month of November can be attributed to consumers as well. When we asked consumers when they planned to start shopping this year, nearly the same amount of people plan to start shopping prior to Halloween when compared to people starting during early to mid-December. Overall, 45% of consumers plan to start shopping prior to Black Friday. Even more interesting, 60% of female respondents plan to start prior to Black Friday, most of whom will start shopping during early to mid-November.

Accenture’s 2013 Holiday Shopping Survey shows a similar trend. Nearly one-quarter (23%) of respondents stated they had already begun shopping for the holidays and more than 70% stated that they would be done before the end of November. A couple reasons behind the early start include spreading out the total holiday budget as well as reducing stress by avoiding the holiday crowds.

When we asked consumers about their opinion of the early Thanksgiving day openings, approximately 61% either liked the early sales or didn’t have an issue with stores opening early. Accenture’s survey also supports this data with more than a third of shoppers reporting that they will be shopping on Thanksgiving Day.

Interestingly, consumers aren’t just shopping for other people this year. Nearly 85% of our respondents said they would be shopping for themselves on Black Friday—a common holiday practice known as self-gifting. According to our survey data, some of the most-wanted gifts that may be self-gifted this year include home electronics (HDTVs / Digital Cameras / Home Theater), Clothing & Shoes and Mobile Devices (Tablets / Smartphones).

Are Retail Employees Happy About the Shift?

Last year, there was a vocal, growing rebellion among retail employees and general consumers about extending Black Friday into Thanksgiving. A Target employee in California started an online petition on Change.org that attracted over 375,000 signatures, but was ultimately unsuccessful in persuading Target to move the 9 p.m. Thanksgiving Day opening time into Black Friday. Similar petitions were distributed for Walmart and other retailers, but none were successful in changing the minds of retailers.

Interestingly, Macy’s management distributed a poll among retail employees asking if they would be interested in arriving at the stores at 7:30 p.m. for the planned 8:00 p.m. opening.

However, it was likely more of a call for volunteers to work on Thanksgiving rather than a factor in deciding to open early. When asked about a lack of volunteers, Macy’s management replied:

“We will do our best to honor your preferences. Based on the needs of the business we may still need you to work an opening shift.”

This year, we reached out to a couple employees at major retailers (who wish to remain anonymous) to get their opinion on the matter. When we asked a female Macy’s employee in California about her company opening on Thanksgiving, she said:

“I think opening on Thanksgiving Day is weird, but Macy’s has to do what it can to keep up. For those that want to work on Thanksgiving, it’s ok. As long as they still get to have dinner with their families.”

More specific to her situation, she continued:

“For me, I don’t want to work on Thanksgiving Day. I celebrate Thanksgiving later in the day, so I don’t want to work. I prefer to work on Black Friday rather than Thanksgiving Day.”

We also spoke to a retail employee at a Columbia store location in New York. Columbia is a popular sportswear company that opens up at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving night and stays open for 24 hours until 10 p.m. on Black Friday. When asked about the company’s position on making Thanksgiving Day optional for employees, she said:

“No, employees don’t have a choice. Sometimes managers have a little say, but for the most part, you get what you get.”

When asked how employees feel about working on Thanksgiving Day, she continued:

“Depending on the employee, some love the rush of working overnight. However, people that have family to spend Thanksgiving with don’t want to work. Last year, I missed my Thanksgiving dinner. Even though I didn’t have to be at work until 8:30 p.m, I had to go to bed at 2:00 p.m. that day and missed dinner. People don’t realize that you will be working all night.”

Up to this point in the year, there haven’t been any new petitions distributed to halt the practice of earlier store openings. It’s likely that many retail employees are more accepting of the fact that more stores will open on Thanksgiving to stay competitive.

What Are Your Plans on Turkey Day?

Regardless of your opinion on the early start on Thanksgiving, online shopping seems to be the happy medium for consumers who don’t want to trek out to stores on Thanksgiving night, but still want to take advantage of big savings. When we asked our respondents how many will be shopping only online this year, nearly half indicated that they would avoid brick & mortar stores completely in favor of online shopping. In addition, the most common response to their favorite aspect of online shopping was staying at home away from the crowds.

Safety also comes into play when choosing online shopping over retail locations. When we asked respondents if they would be concerned standing at the front of a line at a crowded store as the doors open on Black Friday, 58% responded in the affirmative, declaring that they would be worried about getting injured by crowds.

Of course, Ben’s Bargains can help you cut through all the Black Friday noise during November, especially if you prefer staying in the warmth of your home rather than venturing out to crowded stores.

Launching in early November, our Black Friday Hub Page will help you find the absolutely best deals this holiday season all through November as well as on Thanksgiving and Black Friday weekend. For your perusal, we will have:

• A list of the best online and in-store deals updated each day by our expert deal editors.
• Buyer’s guides to help you find the right gifts this year.
• Ad scans for anyone brave enough to venture out on Thanksgiving night.
• A series of awesome giveaways all month long!

Check out the Ben’s Bargains Black Friday Hub!

Let’s Face it, Shoppers Want Black Friday to Begin on Thanksgiving