• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, November 28, 2014

Holiday shoppers began searching for specials early this year as many took to their desktops, laptops and smartphones on Thanksgiving Day to make purchases. Apple iOS owners spent more from their mobile devices, outpacing Android across three key metrics as of 6 p.m. EST Thanksgiving Day. Apple iOS users averaged $121.73 per order compared to $97.14 for Android users -- a difference of 25.3%, per stats released Thursday.

Apple iOS traffic accounted for 32.1% of total online traffic -- more than double that of Android, which drove 14.8% of all online traffic, per IBM's real-time analytics holiday benchmark report.

Online sales rose 12.2% for Thanksgiving Day 2014 compared with a year ago. Mobile traffic accounted for 47.4% of all online traffic, up 26.1% year-on-year. Traffic proved busy, but sales were lucrative. Mobile sales accounted for 29.7% of all online sales, up 26.5% YoY, per IBM. 

Overall, the average order value was $130.39 -- resulting in flat growth compared with 2013 -- but shoppers purchased an average of 4.4 items per order, up 20.7%. Smartphones drove 33.2% of total online traffic, more than double the percentage for tablets, which accounted for 13.9% of all online traffic.  

Tablet sales accounted for 16.1% of online sales compared with smartphones, taking 13.5% of total online sales. But as mobile shopping continued to grow, many consumers chose to click on desktop PCs. PC traffic represented 52.4% of all online traffic and 70.1% of all online sales. Consumers spent 20.5% more on their desktops, with an average order value of $138.89 compared with mobile devices at $115.28. 

Reports suggest that online prices will hit bottom on Thursday, lower than on any other day of the holiday shopping season including Black Friday, per Adobe Systems 2014 Digital Index Online Shopping Forecast.

ChannelAdvisor estimates that e-commerce will grow 16% YoY -- and for Thanksgiving Day hit 18.6% -- growing more rapidly than the e-commerce trend, indicating that consumers began shopping online on turkey day. Amazon is outperforming the 16% benchmark, coming in at 28.2%. eBay grew 5.7% YoY by mid-day Thanksgiving.

Google Shopping and product listing ads grew at 5.7% YoY on Thanksgiving Day. Search grew at 12.4%, in line with e-commerce growth, per ChannelAdvisor.