Cyber Monday 2018 is forecast to be the biggest online shopping day in US history

Sinead Baker/Business Insider

Walmart's website advertises deals for Cyber Monday 2018.

• This year's Cyber Monday is predicted to be the biggest online shopping day in US history.
• The day is expected to generate $7.8 billion in sales, up nearly 18% on last year, according to Adobe Analytics.
• This comes even as holiday shopping becomes more spread out, as consumers increasingly start buying online on Black Friday and even Thanksgiving itself.
• Retailers are offering huge deals to keep Cyber Monday strong in this changing environment.

Cyber Monday 2018 is predicted to be the biggest online shopping day in US history, bringing in more money from online sales than any previous Cyber Monday or Black Friday.

Cyber Monday is expected to generate $7.8 billion in sales, up nearly 18% on last year, according to a new report from Adobe Analytics, CNBC reported.

The growth comes even as Black Friday threatens to make the event less unique as shoppers increasingly spread their online holiday shopping over several days.

Black Friday pulled in $6.22 billion in online sales, Adobe Analytics said, up 23.6% from a year ago. Meanwhile Thanksgiving itself has become a big shopping day too, attracting an estimated $3.7 billion in sales.

Read More: The best Walmart Cyber Monday deals you can get on sale right now

Retailers like Walmart and Amazon are offering huge deals in response to stop Cyber Monday from getting killed.

Ray Wimer, an assistant professor of retail practice at Syracuse University, told Business Insider in an email that the two events had merged as shoppers' habits change and move online.

"Black Friday is really no longer a one-day shopping extravaganza, it really signals a kickoff to a four-day promotional period that concludes on Cyber Monday," he said.

Read More: The 42 best deals and sales you can get online at Target for Cyber Monday 2018

Black Friday saw a record of more than $2 billion in sales done through smartphones alone, the Adobe report said.

However, even though it has the US shopping calendar sewn up, Cyber Monday is still second string to the biggest online shopping day in the world.

Cyber Monday is eclipsed by Singles Day, a Chinese shopping event which attracts almost four times the sales volume.

With $30.8 billion made in sales over 24 hours this month from a single company - e-commerce platform Alibaba - Singles Day celebration is easily the biggest shopping event on earth.