Protesters, take heed: Cyber Monday sales hit $3 billion for a one-day record

Analysts say that Cyber Monday saw big sales this year, surpassing the $3 billion mark that had been projected and setting a one-day record. Beginning on Thanksgiving Day and culminating on Monday, over $11 billion in sales were generated, 17 percent more than last year’s figures.

According to TechCrunch, close to one third of that shopping was via mobile users (26 percent), generating almost $800 million:

Before, mobile users would tend to search for products, do research, and browse while using their smartphones or tablets, but now they’re actually placing items in their cart and completing checkouts at a much higher rate than before.

In terms of mobile metrics, Adobe further broke down mobile spending on Cyber Monday, noting that more of the overall $799 million in mobile sales was generated by people using iOS devices. That is, $575 million came from iOS users while just $219 million came from Android devices. (Those figures also explain why e-commerce retailers and startups tend to release their native shopping apps on iOS first.)

While the use of digital devices is predicted to continue to grow, analysts still say that the majority of purchases continue to happen at traditional brick-and-mortar stores. That’s news that protestors against police violence in Chicago were already well aware of.

That’s where Black Friday protesters shut down the area known as the Magnificent Mile along Michigan Avenue in response to the release of video showing a Chicago police officer executing 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. The Chicago Tribune reported sales were down as much as 50 percent from last year along The Mile due to the protesters, who physically locked arms in front of stores as others marched along the street with bullhorns.