The weekend following Black Friday may have seen a dip in sales, but the week started off strong.

Massive discounts from Black Friday and the Thanksgiving weekend throughout the U.S., on retail sales, took quite a toll, to the point that consumers spent nearly 3 percent less than they did last year, but Cyber Monday m-commerce data looks as though it may be turning that trend around.

The data was recently reported by an industry group and has revealed that online purchases were strong.

This may be an indication that while brick and mortar retailers could be facing a more difficult season, this year, Cyber Monday m-commerce and overall online shopping experienced soaring sales, which could help to make up for the lower figures from the days before. The National Retailer Federation had estimated that the weekend average spending per shopper would be about $407.02. When compared to last year at the same time, that would be 3.9 percent less due to the lower prices. The group suggested that if the prices stay down, the trend will last the rest of the way through the holiday season.

Cyber Monday m-commerce did prove to have powerful numbers, but it still represents only a fraction of overall spending.

According to the chief executive of the National Retail Federation, Matthew Shay, “Retailers will continue to aggressively promote their in-store and online offerings, looking to entice today’s very budget-conscious and value-focused shopper.” Data from Shay’s organization said that there were 141 million people in the United States who shopped at least one time over the weekend. This is an increase over the 139 million who did so last year. However, the total spending had been expected to hit $57.4 billion over the four days from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, which was a decrease of 2.8 percent when compared to the same four day period in 2012.

Analysts explained that the massive deals that drew large numbers of consumers shrank the sales and put a dent into the retail profit margins. Although the sales have been rising – particularly with the Cyber Monday m-commerce data being included into the mix, when all was said and done, the gross margins were headed downward.

Some brands truly shined when it came to using the smartphone and tablet channels for advertising and promotions.

The winners of the Most Effective Mobile Marketing titles were announced at a 2013 awards ceremony in London, recently, with top brands grabbing up some of the most coveted positions.

Entries of the winners came from countries around the world but primarily involved large corporations.

This year’s Most Effective Mobile Marketing Awards winners include brands such as Colgate, Pepsi Co., Orange, Specsavers, Mothercare, and Warburtons. Entries for the winners came from around the globe, with countries that include the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Poland, and India.

There were 270 attendees representing the brands, agencies and firms for the Most Effective Mobile Marketing awards ceremony.

More of the brands that came out on top at this ceremony included The Body Shop, TUI Travel, the British Journal of Photography, and Universal Music. There were also agencies that received awards, including Golden Gekko, OMD, AKQA, Appitude Media, Iris Mobile, Nimbletank, Upstream, Manning Gottlieb OMD, Leo Burnette, Publicis Blueprint, and Initiative.

The awards for two different categories were given to Mothercare. Their partnership with Demandware was seen as the most effective m-commerce solution, and they also had the best b2c app. There was particular praise for this company’s application as it provides a comprehensive advice mixture, which includes a feature for a pregnancy guide that is broken down week by week. It also allows consumers to shop the entire line of products at Mothercare.

The partnership between Warburton and Golden Gekko received the award for the b2b app, Red Insights Tablet. It is used by the Retail Field team of the baker for the management of inventory throughout the United Kingdom’s over 20,000 different retail outlets. It is believed that every year, 5,000 man-days worth of time are saved in data entry because of this application.

In terms of the most effective mobile marketing, itself, the best advertising campaign award was given to the partnership between Intel and OMD, for a crowdsourcing campaign that employed Shazam for encouraging X-Factor viewers, last year, to star in an ad that would run at the end of the final show.