Retail’s biggest weekend of the year did not disappoint. From the record-breaking sales period, here’s everything that went down (and up) over Black Friday Cyber Monday 2023.
Adobe Analytics reported Black Friday hit $9.8 billion, with Cyber Monday surging to $12 billion and Shopify merchants remaining victorious setting a new Black Friday record of a combined $4.1 billion in sales on November 24th alone. Overall global sales were up 6% (YoY), hitting $298 billion - Salesforce explained growth was driven primarily by order volume, rather than inflation, signaling increased consumer demand for the first time in more than five quarters.
The early bird retailers caught plenty of sale shoppers with Adobe reporting from November 1 to November 28, US $105 billion had been generated in global sales revenue.
Typically known for its popularity and super-sized discounts on electronics and children’s toys, Cyber November is now shaping up for its share of major draw cards for the fashion crowd.
Single’s Day on November 11 usually kicks off November’s fashion sale frenzy, but as the day continues to slow for luxury retailers, it looks a lot more like Christmas for what some high-end shoppers are calling the new Black Friday — Private Sale Week, which appears to hit mid month.
This might have something to do with the 800 pages of Private Sale on Ssense on November 14, with discounts reaching up to 50% off (including The Row) and only going live to the public on November 20. Net-A-Porter had more than 15,000 products in a hidden Rewards Private Sale page at 30% off, while Nordstrom’s Private Designer Sale was advertised at 40% off but dropped down to 85%. Meanwhile, Dion Lee and Helmut Lang were among those who staged online archive sales early in the month to the delight of customers. Notably, Phoebe Philo chose to release the second drop of the new label’s sell-out collection a day after Cyber Monday.
Further strategies emerged as retailers bid for their share of the revenue. This included website shutdowns ahead of Black Friday from Australian e-commerce players such as Muscle Republic and Afends who used this strategy to not only prepare for a seamless sales experience but also collect first-party data from those wishing to be notified when the sale went live.
On the other side of the spectrum, sustainable sneaker favorite Veja “canceled” their Black Friday participation in order to keep aligned with their ethos. Instead, they offered free sneaker repairs at their global cobbler locations, with all sneaker brands accepted for repairs.
But, back to the numbers. Here we take a look at how our predictions stacked up with the results from Black Friday Cyber Monday 2023.
The Numbers
Shopify’s top BFCM statistics included:
- Peak sales per minute: $4.2 million at 12:01 PM EST on Friday Nov. 24
- Average cart price: $108.12 ($107.53 on a constant currency basis).
- 3% YoY increase in global sales made on Shopify POS
- Top selling countries: U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, and Germany
- Top selling cities: Los Angeles, New York, and London.
- Cross-border orders represented 15% of all global orders.
- More than 55,000 merchants had their highest-selling day ever on Shopify
The Goods
Salesforce reported the retail sectors with the highest online sales in the US on Black Friday were:
- General footwear and handbags (+22%)
- Sporting goods (+21%)
- Health and beauty (+17%)
Verticals with the highest global discount rates:
- Makeup (38%)
- General Apparel (33%)
- Skincare (33%)
- Active Apparel (32%)
Shopify’s hottest product categories were:
- Apparel and accessories,
- health and beauty
- Home and garden
Adobe’s top categories around Black Friday included:
- PlayStation 5
- Barbie products
- TVs
- Smartwatches
- Headphones
- Holiday decor
- Makeup gift sets
- Gift cards
The Results
How’d we do? We took a stab at Black Friday trend results back in September - let’s see how it stacked up.
We predicted: Market conditions wouldn’t stop shoppers
The shoppers didn’t stop. Adobe reported an average discount of around 25% for apparel, contributing to the Black Friday’s 7.5% increase in revenue from last year, while Shopify merchants drove a 22% increase in sales over last year. With inflation and cost of living woes rampant across the globe, customers have become more discerning about their shopping choices - a mood which influenced retailers to promote their holiday shopping deals earlier than usual, with many major companies offering their deals over a month ahead of Black Friday.
We predicted: BNPL will be a primary payment method
As interest rates for credit cards continue to rise, consumers continue to turn to buy-now-pay-later (BNPL). Online orders using BNPL have risen by a significant 72% for the week leading up to and including Black Friday compared to last year. BNPL revenue is up 47% YoY, according to Adobe Analytics.
Services such as Affirm, Klarna and Afterpay drove $5.9 billion in online spend between Nov. 1 and Nov. 23, up 13.4% from last year, according to Adobe. Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in an interview that the company was shocked to see the strength of BNPL during Black Friday.
“It just shows how much market share both buy-now-pay-later and Klarna is gaining in the market,” Siemiatkowski said. I think it’s both share of checkout, it’s more merchants offering it and more consumers choosing it in general.”
We predicted: Sales will creep forward even earlier
Leave it to Amazon to sound the alarm for the sale season. Once the online giant announced its fall Prime Member Sale would take place from October 10-12, other major retailers including Walmart and Target followed suit.
We predicted: Mobile transactions will get a workout.
Adobe Analytics found that smartphones accounted for $5.3 billion of all online sales on Black Friday, up 10.4% year over year, and accounting for around 50% of online sales. Global data from Shopify also showed strong mobile performance for merchants on that platform with mobile versus desktop 76% to 24%, respectively.
We predicted: Email will reign supreme for sales comms
Salesforce reported the number of messages sent via push notifications, SMS, and streaming services (OTT) combined grew 37% this Cyber Week – compared to a modest 9% growth for traditional email.
We predicted: Generative AI may add to the customer journey
AI offered some serious help to retailers and customers alike. Personalized shopping, enabled by AI, helped fuel online growth and customer profitability with $51 billion of global online sales influenced by AI in areas such as targeted offers, product recommendations, and generative AI-powered chat services.
The Aftermath
E-commerce platforms and their investors had more to cheer about on Cyber Monday as stocks surged. Shares of Etsy closed up about 3%, Amazon stock climbed 0.6% and Shopify shares closed up almost 5%.
Meanwhile, the success of Black Friday’s online and in-store sales produced mixed feelings for US fashion retailers. As told to WWD, Craig Johnson of private equity sponsor Customer Growth Partners, explained that due to Thanksgiving being pulled forward to November 23, retailers will have a December lull that starts in November on Tuesday 28th - and extends right into the second week of December. “It will be a deep lull, taking what had been a perfectly decent Black Friday weekend to the overall season slowing as December unfolds”.
A fashion brand CEO anonymously told the publication, the US Fall/ Winter season will be a difficult one for retailers, “There is still too much stock in the market and too many retailers revert to heavy discounting to get through.”
Catching your breath from Cyber Month? Feeling trapped in the markdown cycle? Still overstocked? While November, Black Friday and Cyber Monday remain the biggest shopping periods of the year, there’s no reason you can’t rely on those 11 other months for serious sales and growth.
Style Arcade’s experts love nothing more than data, so why not put it to your sale strategy? Download How to Break the Markdown Cycle. In this playbook, you’ll get exclusive insights from Smart In Planning’s Susan Martin, along with Style Arcade's expert advice about how to get in control of your pricing and protect margins with effective planning and inventory management - while giving your customers what they want, all year round.
Image credit: Net-A-Porter
