*

Online promotions follow mixed start to holiday season so

far

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Spending online Monday in the U.S. expected to reach $13.2

bln

-Adobe

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Technology like chatbots can engage shoppers, boosting

sales

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Reliance on 'buy now, pay later' services expected at a

record,

Adobe predicts

Dec 2 (Reuters) - After lackluster spending at U.S.

stores on a deals-heavy Black Friday, retailers will be pulling

out all the stops with steep promotions on their websites and

apps to entice people to buy holiday gifts and other merchandise

after the long Thanksgiving weekend.

Retailers have been coaxing cautious U.S. shoppers on Cyber

Monday with push notifications, emails and other ads touting

heavily discounted cosmetics, electronics, toys, clothing and

other products. Many including Walmart ( WMT ) and Amazon ( AMZN ) use AI-enabled

chatbots on their websites and apps to help customers with

queries and drive them to hit '"buy."

With just 23 days before Christmas, the discounts this year

have been deeper with shoppers waiting for promotion heavy days,

experts have said.

For instance on Cyber Monday, traditionally America's

biggest internet shopping day, Target ( TGT ) said it was

offering 50% off thousands of items including video games, home

decor and other tech with a "two-day Cyber Monday" sale that

started on Dec. 1.

The promotions follow a mixed holiday season so far with

muted spending in stores on key shopping days such as Black

Friday.

Sales at brick-and-mortar stores on Black Friday grew just 0.7%

year-over-year, according to preliminary estimates by payments

processor Mastercard, and were lower according to data firm

Facteus.

"(Consumers are) more strategic in their shopping, though,

prioritizing promotions that they believe hold the greatest

value - opening their wallets but with more intentional

distribution," said Michelle Meyer, chief economist at the

Mastercard Economics Institute.

Spending online on Monday in the U.S. is expected to reach

$13.2 billion, 6% more than on Cyber Monday a year earlier,

according to preliminary estimates from Adobe Inc. ( ADBE ) That outlay

would follow the roughly $10.8 billion Americans spent online on

Black Friday, according to Adobe.

With many Americans recently carrying more debt, shoppers are

also expected to spend a record $18.5 billion using third-party

'buy now, pay later' services for holiday purchases in the last

quarter of the year, according to projections by Adobe, which

keeps track of devices that use its software to help power more

than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites.

This year, big retailers like Walmart ( WMT ) and Amazon ( AMZN )

have also relied on generative AI customer service and

search features to make it easier for shoppers to find products

on websites and mobile apps.

Caila Schwartz, director of consumer insights at Salesforce,

a cloud-computing company that tracks global shopping data from

more than 1.5 billion consumers, said that GenAI tools such as

chatbots to answer online shoppers' basic questions, such as

queries about products, helped retailers protect their profit

margins despite rising costs.

Across the first half of Cyber Week - the week starting

ahead of Thanksgiving and ending on Cyber Monday - those

retailers that used GenAI tools for customer service saw a 9%

higher purchase rate by users, according to estimates by

Salesforce.

Schwartz said the higher so-called conversion rate "is a

game-changer."