BLACK FRIDAY + CYBER MONDAY

US figures show discount offers being spread over month or longer

By our News Team | 2021

Spending on Black Friday and Cyber Monday is reducing because retailers are now extending the discount deals over a longer period.

Adobe yesterday released the final online shopping figures for Cyber Monday and Cyber Week 2021 in the United States. Consumers spent a total of US$10.7-billion on Cyber Monday, which is down 1.4 percent year-on-year versus 2020.

Although this is about $100-million less than what shoppers spent last year, it still remains the biggest online shopping day of the year. In the peak hour (8pm-9pm on the west coast of the country), consumers were spending $12-million every minute.

And although both Black Friday (26 November) and Cyber Monday (29 November) reflected less shopper spend than in the recent past, this doesn’t mean that Americans are spending less overall during this important lead-up to Christmas. Instead, the spending was spread out over a longer period to create a Cyber Week or even a Cyber Month.

This is in line with similar trends being seen in Africa, where many retailers – whether online or offline – have created ‘Black Friday Week’ or even turned November into ‘Black Friday Month’.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

“With early deals in October, consumers were not waiting around for discounts on big shopping days like Cyber Monday and Black Friday,” said Taylor Schreiner, Director at Adobe Digital Insights.

Spending spread over Oct and Nov

“This was further fuelled by growing awareness of supply chain challenges and product availability. It spread out e-commerce spending across the months of October and November, putting us on track for a season that still will break online shopping records.”

So far this season (1-29 November), consumers have already spent $109.8-billion online, growing significantly at 11.9 percent over last year.

It means that 22 days have now exceeded $3-billion in online spend, a new milestone. In 2020, only 9 days topped $3-billion at this point. The season has smoothed out considerably, with e-commerce becoming a more ubiquitous daily activity. Adobe adds that it expects the full season (1 November to 31 December) to hit $207-billion in online spending. At 10 percent year-on-year growth, this would be a new record.

Interestingly, Adobe says that mobile phone-based shopping has slowed. On Cyber Monday, smartphones accounted for just 39.7 percent of online sales (vs desktop), rising by a modest 8.4 percent year-or-year.

“With many consumers working from home, smartphones are losing some of their potential as a major shopping channel,” the company states. “For years, the trajectory showed that mobile was on a course to surpass the 50 percent mark in share of online sales, which has since been derailed. Consumers are using their phones to browse instead (57 percent share of web visits).”

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