Just as we’re getting over Black Friday in the UK, news comes from the U.S. about record-breaking online sales on the first day after the Thanksgiving break that has become known a ‘Cyber Monday’.
Black Friday Vs Cyber Monday
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are now the popular culture names for the day after Thanksgiving (which takes place on the last Thursday of November), and the following Monday. Black Friday became a popular shopping day because U.S. workers would take the day after Thanksgiving off work to have a long weekend, which meant that retailers dropped prices on the Friday to tempt them to shop on their day off. Cyber Monday came about because retailers noticed that people were still continuing to buy goods online on Monday.
Up until 2014, Cyber Monday had been the world’s biggest online sales day until its rival Black Friday took over. Now Cyber Monday has made a huge (online) sales comeback.
How Much?
According to the latest figures, $3.45 billion of sales were generated in the U.S. this Cyber Monday. This put Cyber Monday back in front as the biggest selling day, beating the previous record of $3.34 billion spent on this year’s Black Friday.
How Many?
According to Adobe’s figures, the huge sales total was generated by 23 billion visits to websites. This accounted for 80% of all online transactions for the top 100 U.S. retailers!
Why So Much Online?
Retail commentators have suggested that the big move online for purchases this year may be partly due to people wanting to avoid crowds on Friday, and they may not have had time to visit physical stores on Monday due to returning to work.
Mobile For Looking, Desktop For Buying
Even though mobile devices accounted for most website visits globally for the first time last month, the trend of using the mobile to search and choose and using the desktop to purchase is still continuing for most U.S shoppers. According to Adobe figures, 65% of purchases on Cyber Monday were made on desktop although 53% of website visits came from mobile devices.
Smart-phones were used for 44% of visits and 25% of purchases, with iOS devices accounting for a larger value of purchases than Android devices.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
For businesses, the relatively new shopping events such as Black Friday present a great opportunity to generate more sales and take advantage of proactive consumer bargain searches. For some more seasonal businesses, Black Friday could offer a way to generate and kick-start more sales in the quiet period.
The Black Friday and Cyber Monday facts and figures show how important it is to have a website that works well on mobile devices, and how important it is to make sure that Omni-channel options are open to customers.
