It’s almost that time of year again. The most wonderful time of the year, where the world prepares itself for a basket-busting onslaught from consumers on the biggest marketplaces. No, it’s not quite Christmas, but the two most lucrative online shopping events in the calendar: Black Friday (29th November) and Cyber Monday (2nd December)!
Now is the perfect time to start preparing your business to ensure that you’re optimised across every channel of your e-commerce operation in order to maximise sales! Is your business ready to take advantage of these prime selling opportunities? There’s still time to get fully prepared and maximise your sales, so do get in touch with us to see how we can help. Let’s make this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday ones to remember!
In this blog, we look at the most notable stats from last year’s shopping gold mine — and the opportunities for you in 2019.
Amazon continued to dominate in 2018
Last year Cyber Monday was the largest online shopping day of all time in the US, with an almighty $7.9 billion spent, up 19.7 per cent on 2017’s figure of $6.6 billion! Black Friday was also a huge success, with $6.2 billion worth of sales.
Amazon raked in a large proportion of those sales, claiming that Black Friday 2018 was their busiest day of the year, which is impressive given the massive offers available during Amazon’s very own discount day,
PrimeDay.
The retailer saw its biggest shopping day in history on Cyber Monday, with more products ordered worldwide than any other day. Amazon grew its share of online visits 3% year on year to win an impressive 26% share of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday market. With that amount of traffic passing through Amazon, it’s crucial that your listings are optimised to grab the attention of your consumers.
In the UK, Black Friday proved to be the most popular of the two, with online sales on Black Friday 2018 reaching £1.49 billion, up 7.3% on the same day last year. However, with the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period lasting up to several weeks, consumers were spreading their purchasing accordingly.
Although last year’s Black Friday website visits were down on 2017, UK retailers still attracted 194 million visits to their sites on Black Friday alone, with a whopping 1.2 billion visits in the USA!
Mobile is growing!
Black Friday 2018 broke records in terms of sales made from mobile devices. Just over one-third — 33.5% — of all sales came from smartphone transactions, totalling $2.1 billion. PayPal reported a record-breaking $1 billion+ in mobile payment volume for the first time ever on Black Friday, up 42% over 2017.
Online traffic for Black Friday in the UK soared 46% year on year. Nearly half of that traffic arrived via mobile — 48% of online shopping came through a mobile in 2018, rather than in a store, with a further 11% on a tablet. Nearly a quarter of the entire year’s transactions came through the month of November!
It’s time to optimise your content
When it comes to making the most of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you should ensure that all your e-commerce and marketing content is fully optimised in order to attract a share of that enormous swell of traffic and ultimately boost sales!
Videos and imagery play an increasingly important role in securing online sales, with 70% of customers considering images more important than product-specific information, descriptions, and even reviews. That said, having fully optimised product listings across all areas of content — including appropriate keywords to boost discoverability — is the best way forward!
An Amazon Advertising campaign is one of the most effective methods of getting your products noticed on Amazon — fast! It will also help to prevent a loss of traffic that may arise from competitors bidding on your brand name! You’re in full control of how much you spend, when your ads run and how long for.
So, is your business prepped and ready to take advantage of these prime selling opportunities? Do get in touch with us to see how we can help.
