As quick as it arrived, Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend is over! While many sales started early and are carrying on throughout this week, the statistics released by our friends at Shopify show that the focus is still very much on those 4 days after Thanksgiving. From smashing previous records, to a big increase in global sales, to massive support for small businesses, 2020 has been quite the year for Shopify merchants during BFCM.
The Facts & Figures
Overall Sales
The most impressive statistic definitely lies in the total sales from November 27th to November 30th on Shopify. Are you ready?
That’s right - $5.1+ Billion was spent across over 1 Million Shopify powered stores. That’s up an incredible 76% from 2019 and in fact last year’s record - $2.9 Billion - was surpassed by midday on Saturday 28th November. As many predicted, people started shopping even earlier with sales up 84% year-on-year in the week leading up to BFCM.
Global Impact
Over the last couple of years, Shopify has made a push to develop their tools to onboard global stores, and make it easier for merchants to ship internationally. From developing multiple language options to multi-currency sales, those efforts have clearly been appreciated by the global ecommerce community.
BFCM Peak & Average Order Value
If you checked in on the Shopify live BFCM map, then you’d have seen just how staggering the order values were throughout the weekend. The peak for Black Friday/Cyber Monday was at 12:00pm ET on Black Friday itself weighing in at $102 Million+ sales that hour.
Average order values around the world also make for interesting reading - the countries with the highest AOV were Japan ($106.40) and Australia ($105.50).
Small & Independent Businesses
In what has been a pretty rough year for people around the world, it was incredibly encouraging to see consumers supporting small and independent businesses during BFCM. Over 44 Million consumers globally made a purchase from independent and direct-to-consumer brands powered by Shopify representing a 50% increase from last year.
What factors affected BFCM this year?
We covered in a previous article what the issues potentially affecting Black Friday/Cyber Monday could be, and while it’s hard to say exactly how much impact they had we can still see their influence.
One of the biggest factors affecting BFCM was of course the Covid-19 pandemic. This resulted in a couple of issues; the first being that brick-and-mortar businesses were forced to get online, and larger ecommerce brands put a greater focus on their online plans for Black Friday. This meant not only stronger competition in the ecommerce space, but also more emphasis on online shopping for the consumer. On top of this, as lockdown restrictions changed around the world some countries such as the UK with tighter restrictions unsurprisingly saw huge amounts of growth as consumers were unable to go to physical stores.
3 things to focus on from BFCM 2020
Time to go global
Given the impressive international results, it would make sense to explore expanding into the international market if you haven’t done so already. With a greater appetite for merchants around the world and Shopify continuing to develop international tools, now is the time to take your brand global.
Continue to improve your customer experience
With increased competition and more businesses getting online, it’s important now more than ever to have an incredible customer experience to set yourself apart. This includes things like improving your mobile experience - while mobile stayed fairly static this year it still represented 67% of all orders placed.
Appeal to and build your community
Consumers want to support small and independent businesses, and the brands they discover now could be ones they remain loyal to for years to come. Ensure you’re making the most of that potential community by looking for ways to strengthen your relationship with your customers. Look into developing your content and email marketing especially in the new year.