The biggest shopping event of the year stands stronger than ever.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday remain record-breaking events for the commerce industry as the biggest shopping period of the year grows more than projected. Read on for the numbers regarding the revenue-reaping holiday shopping season and why you should be building strategies around them.
Thanksgiving Day
Online spending on Thanksgiving 2018 hit $3.7 billion, representing 27.9 growth year-over-year. It is the highest growth rate since 2014. One reason is that many merchants changed their strategy, for the first time charging the same prices on Thanksgiving Day as they did on Black Friday.
Black Friday
Online sales on Black Friday jumped 23.6 percent from a year ago, to $6.2 billion. More than $2 billion of these revenues came from smartphones with 33.5 percent of total sales attributed to mobile, up from 29 percent last year.
Cyber Monday
Cyber Monday was the biggest sales day of the year with online revenues of $7.9 billion, an increase of 19.3 percent over 2017. Mobile transactions soared. Over half of visits — 54.3 percent — came from mobile devices, a year-over-year increase of 55.6 percent.
On Cyber Monday, direct website traffic ranked highest for driving revenue at 25.3 percent
share of sales (down 1.2 percent YoY), followed by paid search at 25.1 percent (up 7.4 percent YoY), natural search at 18.8 percent (down 2.8 percent) and email at 24.2 percent (up 0.5 percent). Similar to past years, social media continued to have minimal impact on online sales at a 1.1 percent share.
Over 65 Million Customers
Over 165 million people shopped over the weekend, slightly higher than the number predicted.
BOPIS continues to be a popular option.
Buy Online, Pickup In-Store (BOPIS) over the weekend saw a record 50 percent increase year-over-year. As the online and offline retail experience continues to blend, retailers with physical stores drove 28 percent higher conversions online.
Multi-channel shopping is also up-trending
An NRF survey of shoppers indicated that people shopping both online and in-store was up nearly 40 percent from last year. Multi-channel shopper outspent single channel shopper by up to $93 on average.
More than half shopped on mobile
Online shopping on mobile devices for the entire five-day period showed a significant increase over last year, representing 54.3 percent of site visits (46.6 percent smartphones, 7.7 percent tablets), up 18.9 percent over 2017. Mobile devices collectively accounted for 35.9 percent of revenue, an 18.3 percent year-over-year increase.
Overall spending was up
Average spending over the five-day period was down approximately $20 compared to the same period last year, but total spending was up.
30-to-40 -somethings spent the most
The biggest spenders were consumers aged 35-44 who spent an average of $413 over the weekend, roughly $100 more than the total average per consumer.
If you’re not already building strategies around the Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping weekend, you should be. Talk to our Digital Marketing team to put you on the right path for next year.
Resources:
- Adobe Analytics
- NRF
