Ecommerce retailers watched the Black Friday and Cyber Monday numbers roll in with avid interest, and Logicblock was no different. Here’s our recap of Black Friday and Cyber Monday and what online retailers can take away from the cold, hard retail statistics:
Black Friday
The actual Black Friday shopping day saw an estimated $11 billion in sales – the exact same amount as Black Friday 2009. But one day doesn’t tell the whole story. Over the whole weekend, sales rose from $41.2 billion to $45 billion, and the average shopper spent about $22 more over the holiday, up from $343.31 to $365.34.
What were people buying on Black Friday? According to the National Retail Federation, people spent more money on discretionary gifts this year – sales of jewelry, media and gift cards all rose from last year. Of course, this could have been because they were too sleepy to know the difference – the majority of shoppers were in stores by 4am, and many started earlier than ever, with 9.5% (up from 3.3%) starting their shopping at midnight, when Black Friday superstar retailers like Wal-Mart opened their doors.
Probably the most interesting Black Friday trend for ecommerce sellers was the rise in online spending. Many shoppers opted out of an early wakeup call and instead grabbed the mouse, making for a 16% increase in cyber spending, up to $648 million. Contributing to that number, the average Black Friday web order went from $20 last year to almost $200 this year. Big online sales on gadgets like Amazon’s $89 Kindle Deal and Apple’s online store-wide sale probably helped considerably.
Cyber Monday
This year’s Cyber Monday was truly a milestone. According to ComScore, online sales topped $1 billion for the very first time this year! That means that Monday November 29th was the biggest online shopping day in the history of the internet. And on December 1, ComScore released another report that, for the entire holiday season, so far $13 billion has been spent online – another record for this time of year. As with previous Cyber Mondays, nearly half the transactions originated from work computers, meaning that people went back to work with half a mind on actually working and half a mind on scoring those ecommerce deals.
The Ecommerce Takeaways
- Don’t Put All Your Eggs in the Cyber Monday Basket – While Cyber Monday knocked it out of the park, more people than ever also shopped online on Black Friday. These trends only promise to continue. Focus on the entire holiday weekend, and not just one day.
- Leverage Email Marketing and Online Advertising to Get Attention – If you’ve ever shopped online, you probably noticed your email inbox inundated with special Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers from almost every store you’ve ever patronized. By going to the customer instead of waiting for the customer to find them, retailers got a head start on the holidays. Use your email list and advertise on sites where your customers go every day, such as Facebook, to see the same success.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are behind us, but now that we’re moving into December, it’s time to focus on last minute shoppers who tend to spend less per transaction and buy in smaller quantities. Check out Logicblock’s Holiday eCommerce Tips from the Ghost of Christmas Past for how to leverage your marketing efforts toward holiday shoppers for each remaining week of the retail season.