5 Black Friday Online Shopping Trends You Might Have Missed

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have officially kicked off the 2022 holiday shopping season. This year, retailer platforms and brand websites alike brought the deals, but what worked and how did this year compare to past sales? Here are the top five Black Friday eCommerce trends you might have missed.

1) Mobile shopping is up but desktop is still the conversion king.

Over the holiday weekend, consumers took to their phones to start tackling their gift shopping lists. According to TechCrunch, mobile accounted for nearly half of online sales on Black Friday and 55% of sales on Thanksgiving Day. But conversion rates still remained higher with the desktop shoppers. Adobe Analytics numbers show shoppers pressed that buy button nearly twice as much when on their computers versus their phones - with a 5.6% conversion rate on desktop compared to 3.1% conversion on mobile.

2) Amazon reported record breaking sales, but their momentum could be slowing.

The number one online retailer isn't at risk of losing its crown anytime soon. Amazon touted that the Thanksgiving holiday shopping weekend was their biggest ever, with customers buying hundreds of millions of products between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.

Amazon did not release full sales figures or comment on how revenue compared to previous years. As reported in Retail Dive, this is on the heels of an October sales event that underperformed for the retailer - falling short of Amazon’s annual Prime Day sale over the summer.

While Walmart also declined to report their holiday weekend sales, they did note a huge increases in searches - up more than 380%.  While this doesn't necessarily point to sales growth or absolute sales, it could signal a wave of new shoppers moving to the retailer.

Finally, Direct to Consumer (DTC) appears to have potentially outperformed Amazon when it comes to YoY sales growth results - the platform reported that their merchants’ sales were up 21% ($7.5 billion total).

3) Inflation-adjusted growth and deeper discounts will affect profits.

According to Salesforce numbers, online sales enjoyed a 9% increase compared to 2021. But that figure is tempered by an inflation rate of around 8% - which leaves a much more lackluster 1% in realized sales growth in the U.S. And buyers seem to be wearier to hand over their dollars which means savings had to be steeper to win the sale.

Salesforce reported that discounts were 30% or more on the most popular Black Friday deals - up from around 27% in 2021. That means retailers and brands may be taking profit hits over the holidays if prices can't absorb increased costs.

4) Retail media spend was up as advertising was a crucial revenue driver.

Marketing spending surged throughout Thanksgiving and Black Friday, with retail media and paid search spends up more than 70% across the 2 days and social spending up more than 85% compared to November’s daily averages, according to a report posted to Skai’s blog. While increased competition also meant brands were paying higher cost-per-click (CPC), Skai calls the efforts “a clear success for marketers.”

Retail media ads generated 192% higher revenue on Black Friday compared to the November daily average. Average order size was also up a reported 112% during the holiday shopping days.

5) Watch for "Black Friday" to start sooner, last longer.

For the last few decades, Black Friday has represented the start of the brick-and-mortar holiday shopping season and begat the online-focused Cyber Monday following Thanksgiving weekend.

But as shopper behavior demands an increasingly omnichannel experience, the lines between these shopping holidays continue to blur into what we now refer to as Cyber Week or Cyber 5 - the five days starting with Thanksgiving and ending on Cyber Monday.  And trends show we’ll continue to take it further. This year Target's holiday shopping deals started as far back as late October and Walmart promoted the first Black Friday sales in early November. While Amazon was the latest, kicking off Black Friday deals on Thanksgiving Thursday, all three major platforms continued promoting deep Black Friday-style holiday discounts into early December.

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