Black Friday and cyber Monday 2014 Recap

December 3, 2014 By BJ Cook,

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are now a thing of the past. Now we need to talk about Thanksgiving day sales. As more people begin to shop online at earlier times, we see a slight decrease in brick and motor sales and a surge in ecommerce sales. This was the first year that many retailers actually opened on Thanksgiving afternoon, to give those that wanted to shop an upper leg. This caused the increase in sales on Thanksgiving day and a slower pace of shopping for most retailers on black Friday.

What were Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday sales?

Adobe reported that “Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday set new [online] sales records with $1.33 billion and $2.4 billion, respectively.” IBM said that Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday e-commerce was up over 2013. On Thanksgiving day this was a 32 percent increase as compared to Thanksgiving day on 2013.

What Were Cyber Monday ecommerce results?

E-commerce revenue was up 15.4% on Cyber Monday 2014 compared to Cyber Monday 2013, making it the biggest day in US online shopping history. Easily shattering the previous record set just three days ago, on Black Friday.

But, Why would sales be up and AOV be down?

IBM explains this slight reduction in average order value due to shoppers becoming more comfortable and digitally savvy in how they use online coupons and rebates to secure the best bargains.

Mobile sales vs. desktop

And, as we predicted earlier this year - mobile device sales were up. Substantially. On Thanksgiving Day mobile devices drove 52 percent of all internet traffic. This is the first time in history that mobile ecommerce sales outweighed desktop sales. And On Black Friday 34.69% of all online sales were purchased via mobile.

What does this mean for the future of ecommerce?

We have seen such a big increase on mobile sales, not only for the holiday shopping but throughout the year. So launch your 2015 year with a strong email campaign, since email marketing generated 27.3 percent of online orders for Black Friday and 23.9 percent on Cyber Monday...it is only going to increase next year. Start building your lists...NOW! If you need any help with your 2015 planning, don't hesitate to drop us a line.