Salesforce, a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform offering a variety of tools and services for businesses to manage and analyze customer interactions and data, has reported $298 billion in global digital sales and $51 billion in AI-influenced purchases as of November 28th. The report highlights the significant impact of digital sales during the holiday shopping season.

As reported by Salesforce, online sales saw an increase on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday with global sales rising by 8% and 5% respectively. Similar trends were noticed in the U.S. with increases of 9% and 3% while Europe reported an increase of 8% on Black Friday followed by a significant rise to 10% on Cyber Monday. In total, Cyber Week's digital sales peaked at $298 billion globally due to substantial discount rates throughout the week - these discounts rose to an average of 27% globally and up to 29% in the U.S.

Salesforce aided retailers globally by facilitating profitable growth and scalability across multiple channels as detailed in a company article. This was largely made possible by Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, and AI. These tools allowed for the delivery of fast, easy, personal digital experiences catering to consumers who continue to prefer online shopping.

In information published by Financial Content, it was noted that Black Friday maintained its position as the most popular U.S. online shopping day bringing in $16.4 billion in U.S. sales alone; globally this figure rose to $70.9 billion. Artificial Intelligence (AI) also played a crucial role during this time contributing significantly with $51 billion in online sales during Cyber Week's seven-day period. Salesforce took the lead as the principal AI CRM analyzing data from over 1.5 billion shoppers worldwide reporting a year-on-year growth rate of 6% in global sales, reaching a total of $298 billion. U.S. sales also increased by 5% year-on-year, totaling $70.8 billion - this growth was primarily driven by consumer demand with an increase in order volume rather than inflation. Consumers demonstrated patience during Cyber Week securing attractive deals and contributing to strong performance throughout the period.