With Cyber Monday set to kick off after Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, analytics firms, market researchers, and major retailers are weighing in on the season, offering data on consumer trends and mobile spending as shoppers increasingly turn to smartphones over long retail lines.

RETAIL GROUP SAYS AVERAGE SPEND DOWN, ONLINE BEATS RETAIL: The National Retail Federation released its annual Thanksgiving survey in partnership with analytics firm Prosper. The survey, which asked 4,330 consumers about Thanksgiving shopping plans and predicted a total turnout of 154M as compared to 151M last year, showed that average spending per person fell to $289.19 from last year's $299.60. Forty-four percent of respondents shopped online and 40% shopped in-store. The most popular day to shop online was Black Friday, up 1.3% from last year to 74%. Less than 15% of consumers arrived to stores by 6 am or earlier on Black Friday. Turning to Cyber Monday, the group's survey showed that 122M Americans plan to shop tomorrow, up from the 121M who planned to participate last year.

ADOBE SAYS ONLINE SALES JUMP: Adobe (ADBE) released its online shopping data for Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day, reporting total online sales up 17.7% to $5.27B over the two-day period, with Black Friday alone growing 21.6% to $3.34B as mobile revenue on the day jumped 33% to $1.2B. The company noted that mobile drove the majority of visits to retail websites on Black Friday, at 55%, while retailers that invested in ecommerce and social "have seen 30% more sales on average and 25% higher average order values." According to Adobe, the five best selling toys were Lego, Razor scooters, Hasbro's (HAS) Nerf guns, DJI Phantom Drones and Mattel's (MAT) Barbie Dreamhouse. The five top selling electronic products on Black Friday were Apple (AAPL) iPad, Samsung (SSNLF) 4K TVs, Apple MacBook Air, LG TVs and the Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox. The electronic products most likely to run out-of-stock include Nintendo (NTDOY) NES Classic, Sony's (SNE) PlayStation VR bundle, the PlayStation 4 Call of Duty Black Ops bundle, Beats Solo, and the Xbox One S Madden NFL 17 bundle, the company said.

OTHER BLACK FRIDAY REPORTS: ShopperTrak released its preliminary retail data for Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, finding that shopper visits declined a combined 1% year over year. Black Friday shopper visits were flat when compared to 2015. "After analyzing historical shopper visit data, we found that Thanksgiving Day store openings were increasingly pulling shopper visits from Black Friday over the past few years. This year, we saw a reversal of that trend, which can be attributed to several factors including fewer store openings on Thanksgiving Day, as well as online shopping," the analytics firm remarked. Performance marketing company HookLogic, meanwhile, reported that Black Friday shoppers and purchasers rose 18.5% and 15.2%, respectively, across major retail websites. The average Black Friday cart size was 3.1 products per cart, with an average cart value of $150 and an average mobile cart of $125. "This year, we believe the fact that several major retailers closed on Thanksgiving had a positive impact on ecommerce sales," HookLogic commented. Finally, Verizon (VZ) reported results from its Verizon Retail Index, showing a 9% lift in average daily ecommerce traffic to U.S. retailers on Black Friday, following a 10% jump on Thanksgiving Day. Verizon's Retail Index tracks ecommerce traffic across its broadband networks to the top 25 U.S.-based online retailers.

NPD REPORTS THIN CROWDS: At market researcher NPD Group, retail expert Marshal Cohen commented that "in the 40 years I've studied Black Friday, I've never seen the crowds this soft on Friday morning... I've visited the same register at the same store at 7:00 am for the past 15 years. Last year, I found 70 people waiting to check out at that register. This year, there were only seven people in that line. That says it all." Cohen's colleague Stephen Baker, chief hardware analyst for NPD, added that what many brick and mortar electronics retailers seem to have missed is that "Black Friday, as an event and a shopping experience, has ceased to exist. There were few if any lines at 6:00 am on Black Friday, as that traffic long ago migrated to Thanksgiving Eve or online, yet many retailers continue to chase it... It's now truly the Thanksgiving weekend that kicks off the holiday season. And the imperative is now to be truly successful over both Thanksgiving week and Cyber Week."

TARGET, WAL-MART, AMAZON SIGNAL STRONG START TO SEASON: The broader commentary from tracking firms follows several individual announcements from major retailers Friday, with Wal-Mart (WMT) calling Thanksgiving Day "once again one of the top online shopping days of the year" and noting that more than 70% of traffic to Walmart.com during its Black Friday event was driven by mobile. Target (TGT) was similarly upbeat, declaring "strong" retail traffic alongside "record-breaking" online sales at Target.com, which "had its biggest day ever and experienced double-digit growth," eclipsing even last year's Cyber Monday. In addition to strength in Apple products, TVs, and game consoles, Target also highlighted a 50% sales increase in wearables, including the Fitbit (FIT) Charge HR. Amazon (AMZN), meanwhile, reported that its mobile orders on Thanksgiving beat last year's Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.