Cyber Monday sales might not be enough to save retailers

Holiday sales are booming online — but it’s not clear whether that will be enough to offset increasingly sluggish traffic that’s plaguing shopping malls and retail stores nationwide.

Cyber Monday spending was estimated to reach a record $7.8 billion — an 18.3 percent spike from a year ago, according to Adobe Analytics — as shoppers increasingly turned to their phones to pounce on deals for everything from gaming consoles to cashmere sweaters.

That made Monday the biggest-ever single day for online shopping by most reckonings. Enthusiasm on Wall Street pushed shares of Amazon — which accounts for nearly a third of online holiday spending — surging 5.3 percent on Monday, to close at $1,581.33.

Nevertheless, mall traffic during Thanksgiving weekend was down by most estimates — leaving it an open question whether retailers will see a blowout Christmas.

“We are calling it a very good season, but not a great one,” Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, told The Post.

CGP estimates that retail spending this holiday will rise 5.1 percent, compared with a 5.3 percent lift in 2017.

The problem: Traffic at the worst-performing shopping malls — those that typically are older and house lower-end retail chains — is down as much as 10 percent this month, according to CGP.

Meanwhile, second-tier “B malls” that typically have a Macy’s, a JCPenney and a Sears — but not a Neiman Marcus, a Saks Fifth Avenue or a Tiffany — are down by about 3 percent, according to the firm. The so-called A-malls that do have upscale stores will post modest growth, Johnson predicts, resulting in an overall mall traffic decline of 2 percent.

“The big growth rate increases that are happening online may not be enough to offset the lack of growth in their stores,” Marshal Cohen, market researcher NPD’s chief industry adviser, told The Post.

That’s despite the fact that traditional retailers are becoming savvier about stealing more share from online-only competitors — including Amazon, which gave disappointing guidance last month for its sales and profits for the holiday season.

“This year we are seeing a change with stores not giving away the online business,” Cohen said.

Walmart, Target, Kohl’s and Best Buy have been especially strong in this area, Cohen added.

Indeed, for the first time there was significant growth — a 32 percent spike — in the number of shoppers checking out online deals in the days leading up to Thanksgiving and Black Friday compared with a decline the year before, according to Verizon’s Holiday Retail Index.

“Retailers are absolutely getting better about enticing customers to engage with them digitally,” said Michele Dupre, vice president of retail for Verizon Enterprise Solutions.

Through Sunday, shoppers had shelled out $50.6 billion online — a 20 percent increase over last year, according to Adobe. Of that total, $15.3 billion was conducted on smartphones, which account for 59 percent of visits to retail sites.