Jan 7 (Reuters) - U.S. online spending rose nearly 9%

during the 2024 holiday season, with shoppers mainly using their

smartphones to buy products ranging from TVs to LEGO sets, data

from Adobe Analytics showed on Tuesday.

Holiday spending from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31 rose 8.7% to

about $241.4 billion online, compared with Adobe's forecast of

$240.8 billion in September. In 2023, online spending during the

same period grew 4.9%.

A shorter holiday season and surplus discounts have been a

key feature of the 2024 season with retailers including Walmart ( WMT )

and Target ( TGT ) increasing spending on ads and

offering early discounts, targeted promotions as well as using

artificial intelligence to help draw in bargain-hungry

customers.

According to Adobe, 54.5% of online shopping transactions

took place through a smartphone this holiday season, compared

with 51.1% in the same period in 2023.

"The 2024 holiday season showed that e-commerce is being

reshaped by a consumer who now prefers to transact on smaller

screens and lean on AI-powered services to shop more

efficiently," said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst, Adobe Digital

Insights.

Increasing reliance on AI-powered chatbots for product

recommendations and shopping assistance drove a 1,300% rise in

customer traffic to retail sites, according to Adobe which

tracks e-commerce by monitoring online transactions across

websites by accessing data from 85% of the top 100 U.S. internet

retailers.

Salesforce data also showed that AI-powered chatbots and

other shopping features helped consumers purchase and return

products during the 2024 holiday season.

Along with convenient shopping and free delivery options,

flexible payment methods such as buy-now-pay-later (BNPL)

services also grabbed the attention of price-sensitive

customers, Adobe said.

For the 2024 holiday shopping, BNPL usage accounted for

$18.2 billion in online spend, up 9.6% from the last season.