Black Friday - Cyber Monday 2019 by the Numbers
Wednesday, December 11, 2019Eric Zegarski
2019 Black Friday - Cyber Monday Results
Another Black Friday – Cyber Monday has come and gone, and we’re well into the holiday shopping season. If you’ve been keeping a key eye out for BFCM related news on Twitter or LinkedIn, then you’re already aware that 2019 was a record setting year! For us at eBridge, it was a record breaking year too. We processed a record amount of transactions for our customers through our cloud-based integration platform, which is hosted on Microsoft Azure. Our platform had a 100% up-time as well. But we’ll toot our own horn a little more later. Let’s look at how merchants preformed this Black Friday – Cyber Monday.
Shopify Merchants Set New Records on Their Platform
Shopify was eager to boast about their merchants’ success during BFCM and published this
report. Earlier this year, Shopify made it public that they have over 1 million active merchants using their platform. Merchants from 175 countries, using Shopify were able to collectively sell 2.9 billion dollars worth of goods on BFCM. That’s 1.1 billion dollars higher than last year! In addition, over 25.5 million consumers made a purchase from a merchant that is powered by Shopify. Here are some other Shopify related statistics:
- Peak sales occurred on Black Friday at 3:01pm EST with $1.5 million being sold every minute
- On average consumers spent $83.05 per order
- Canadian consumers spent the most with an average of $96.30 per order
- Shoppers from France and the UK were the most conservative with their purchases, spending an average of $66.86 and $67.01 per order
- London UK and Toronto Canada were the top selling cities, while the UK, Germany, France and Spain were the top selling countries globally
- eCommerce is breaking down the barriers of international commerce, as 19 percent of transactions on Shopify stores were from customers who were not located in the merchant’s country
- Mobile continues to dominate as the preferred shopping channel with 69% of all purchases made on a mobile device
- As for what consumers were buying on BFCM, apparel and accessories continue to be the go-to category for shoppers followed by makeup and mobile phone accessories
Black Friday – Cyber Monday on a Macro Scale Thanks to BigCommerce
BigCommerce’s analytics and data team were busy this BFCM gathering data and crunching numbers. They published this
report that looks at Black Friday – Cyber Monday on a macro scale. Going beyond just sales figures, BigCommerce also analyzed what marketing and sales tactics merchants were going all in with to drive traffic and sales. Before we dive into their findings, let’s go over some terms that you may not be familiar with.
GMV stands for Gross Merchandise Volume. It’s basically the total sales dollar value for merchandise sold through a particular marketplace. AOV is an abbreviation for Average Order Value. This is the dollar sum of all orders divided by the sum of total orders.
Black Friday - Cyber Monday in a Nutshell
- Thanksgiving Sunday and Cyber Monday both saw the largest year over year growth with a GMV increase of 26% from 2018
- Cyber Monday had a 13% GMV increase from 2018 and the highest AOV of $122.20
- Black Friday had a 23% GMV increase from 2018 and AOV rose from $109.60 to $119.60
- Mobile orders were responsible for 49% of all orders and were the primary source of revenue for each day besides Cyber Monday
- Webstores continue to have the highest AOV amongst all sales channels followed by Facebook, with Facebook’s AOV being lower than branded websites
- Amongst product categories fashion and jewelry brands saw a drop in traffic from Facebook and Facebook’s GMV contribution dropped from 70% to 49%
- Amazon’s AOV is almost double that of eBay in 2019
A Deeper Dive Into Black Friday – Cyber Monday 2019 Revenue and AOV
Sales across all verticals increased over Black Friday – Cyber Monday in comparison to 2019. Thanksgiving and Sunday saw the biggest increase percentage wise. Throughout the entire weekend AOV rose by 10%. Below you’ll find breakdowns for increases in GMV and AOV from 2018.
GMV Increases
- Thanksgiving 26%
- Black Friday 23%
- Saturday 25%
- Sunday 26%
- Cyber Monday 13%
- Cyber Week 21%
AOV Increases
- Thanksgiving 7.7%
- Black Friday 9.1%
- Saturday 7.4%
- Sunday 5.5%
- Cyber Week 9.9%
Black Friday – Cyber Monday Sales by Device
Mobile orders including tables were responsible for driving 49% of all total orders. However, desktop continues to have a higher AOV, followed by tables and then cellular devices. Here’s a breakdown of GMV and AOV by device type.
Black Friday – Cyber Monday GMV by Order Source
- Desktop 48%
- Mobile 45%
- Tablet 4%
- Unknown 3%
Black Friday – Cyber Monday AOV by Order Source
- Desktop $126.74
- Mobile $96.57
- Tablet $107.97
Black Friday – Cyber Monday Sales Are Driven by Webstores
Webstores continue to have the highest AOV followed by Facebook. Fashion and jewelry brands experienced the biggest revenue gains through Facebook, with 49% of their total GMV driven through it. Amazon and eBay have evenly distributed GMVs for different verticals. On Amazon, fashion + jewelry and home + garden are the best preforming verticals. On eBay however, toys + games and automotive are the top performers. Below you’ll find channel specific AOV stats:
- Amazon $64.14
- Facebook $72.02
- eBay $34.84
- Webstore $111.91
- Buy buttons $68.01
Most Successful Black Friday – Cyber Monday Tactics Used by Merchants
When it came to driving awareness and increasing conversions, merchants were all in with digital. Here are a few tactics that helped merchants increase both their GMV and AOV:
- Selling on or through social media channels like Facebook and Instagram
- Drip email marketing especially PRIOR to Thanksgiving.
- Omni-channel with Amazon and eBay
- Site UX and checkout optimization
- Influencer marketing and social media engagement
- Inventory preparation to avoid stock-outs
eBridge Set Records on Black Friday – Cyber Monday
Our universal
eCommerce,
ERP and
EDI integration platform experienced zero down time during Black Friday – Cyber Monday. We were able to handle the influx of transactions due to our could based solution being hosted on Microsoft Azure. In addition, during this busy commerce season, we processed over 5 million documents. If those documents were printed and had to be transferred manually, they would stack up to be as tall as the CN Tower. If you’re an existing eBridge customer, we feel your BFCM experience went a little like this:
