[Video] Black Friday Recap: Keep Your Customers Engaged Throughout the Holiday Season

With Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday behind us, and Christmas still ahead of us, now is a very good time to check in on how 2018 holiday spending is trending. So, we teamed up with BounceX to recap the biggest takeaways from Black Friday 2018.

How did brands do this holiday rush?

The story to date is an extremely positive one. Consumers are letting their wallets and credit cards express their optimism about the economy, and records are breaking left and right. People are eagerly shopping (especially online), and, more than ever, they are comfortable placing orders on mobile. Cyber Monday alone brought in close to $8 billion in online sales, which is a growth of almost 20% year-over-year.

That has made this Cyber Monday the single largest online shopping day of all time in the US

Check out our webinar recording to learn about some of the most successful holiday campaigns and find out how your brand can iterate on your holiday success and activate your customers in the new year.

Here are 25 stats that tell the story

Thanksgiving Day
1. Thanksgiving Day online spending hit $3.7 billion, representing 27.9 growth year-over-year, far outpacing 2017’s 18.3 percent growth rate – making it the highest growth rate since 2014.
2. Consumers were enthusiastic about placing orders on Thanksgiving Day and picking them up on Black Friday. Buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) orders — were up 73 percent from Thursday to Friday.

Thanksgiving Weekend
3. 165 million people shopped over Thanksgiving weekend either in stores or online, beating predictions.
4. More than 89 million people shopped both online and in stores over the holiday weekend, up nearly 40 percent from last year.
5. Consumers aged 35-44 spent an average of $413 over the weekend, which was about $100 more than the total average per consumer.
6. Top purchases over the holiday weekend included apparel (bought by 57 percent of those surveyed), toys (34 percent), books and video games (29 percent), electronics (26 percent) and gift cards (20 percent).
7. Based on Thanksgiving-weekend performance, the National Retail Foundation reiterated its holiday-season forecast of 4.3-4.8% growth in year-over-year sales.
8. Almost half (48%) of consumers did less than 25% of their gift shopping over Thanksgiving weekend; overall consumers have more than half of their planned shopping left to do.

Black Friday
9. Online sales on Black Friday jumped 23.6 percent from a year ago, to $6.2 billion.
10. Mobile devices accounted for 67% of all digital traffic, up from 61% on the same day last year.
11. Sales via smartphones accounted for $2 billion in Black Friday totals.
12. A survey of U.S. adults found that 46% reported shopping on Black Friday.
13. At 4.9%, Black Friday was the best day of the year for conversions.
14. Retailers sent 3.5 billion emails on Black Friday, up from 3 billion last year.
15. According to one survey, in-store foot traffic on Black Friday fell by 1.7 percent compared to last year, likely due to earlier retailer discounts on Thanksgiving Day.

Cyber Monday & Cyber Week
16. Cyber Monday resulted in record online sales of $7.9 billion, making it making it the largest online shopping day of all time in the U.S. It was a 19.7 percent increase year-over-year.
17. 40% of U.S. adults reported shopping on Cyber Monday.
18. Cyber Monday was the biggest day in Amazon’s history.
19. Retailers sent 4.1 billion emails on Cyber Monday, up from 3.3 billion last year. Significant increases over the 3 billion and 3.3 billion, respectively, sent in 2017.
20. Mobile sales accounted for 53% of Cyber Week revenue.

Predictions
21. 2018 holiday retail sales could top $1.10 trillion.
22. American consumers will spend $100 billion online on holiday purchases by New Year’s Day.
23. Consumers plan to spend an average of $1,007 during the holiday season this year, up 4.1 percent from 2017.
24. Amazon will capture up to 50 percent of total e-commerce holiday sales.
25. More than half of holiday orders will Include free shipping