Thanksgiving is becoming one of the most popular days to shop online

Matt Cardy / Stringer / Getty Images

Online shopping on Thanksgiving is a growing phenomenon.

• Online shopping is becoming a Thanksgiving tradition.
• Thanksgiving Day's online sales are set to reach $4.4 billion this year, up 20.2% over 2018, according to Adobe Analytics.
• Nearly half of online sales as of 5 p.m. ET on Thursday were placed via smartphone, despite Facebook and Instagram outages.
• Black Friday, which is traditionally the biggest shopping day of the holiday season, is also increasingly under threat by online deals on Cyber Monday.
• Sign up for Business Insider's retail newsletter, The Drive-Thru.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Forget about the turkey. Shopping online is becoming a new Thanksgiving tradition in many American homes.

Adobe Analytics expects online sales to reach $4.4 billion by the end of Thanksgiving Day this year, which would mark the first time ever that online sales surpass $4 billion in the US on the holiday. The projected number also represents a 20.2% year-over-year growth.

As of 5 p.m. ET, online sales in the US had already hit $2.1 billion.

Many major retailers begin their Black Friday deals on Thanksgiving. And some even begin their sales online days before the shopping holidays start.

"[I]t's clear that shoppers are devoting more time to shopping on Thanksgiving than ever," Vivek Pandya, Adobe's lead digital analyst, said in a statement. "Expect to see a surge in retail sales in the afternoon and into the evening, as shoppers step away from their dinner tables and divert more attention to shopping for the best deals."

Black Friday, traditionally the biggest shopping day of the holiday season, is also becoming increasingly overshadowed by the online deals on Cyber Monday.

Business Insider analyzed the holiday shopping behaviors of more than 2,300 adult Americans in a survey with global technology company Morning Consult. Among the published results, one of the largest takeaways was that shoppers prefer to make purchases on Cyber Monday across nearly all demographics including age, sex, race, gender, and household income.

Read more:

• • Here's when stores will open their doors for Black Friday sales
  • Shoppers are set to spend a record-setting $4.4 billion online on Thanksgiving Day, despite Instagram and Facebook outages
  • The best Black Friday store sales of 2019 - from big-box retailers like Best Buy and Target to startups like Casper and Brooklinen
  • Black Friday is dying, and the rise of Cyber Monday may be to blame