Bluecore Reveals Shifts in Black Friday Retail Performance & Shopper Habits: Retailers See 26% Increase in Day-Of Black Frida...
28 November 2020 - 7:05PM
Business Wire
The Retail Technology Company Analyzed 9.7
Billion Shopper Events Across 159 Brands to Track Growth and Trends
Compared to 2019 and Major Shopping Events This Year
According to new Black Friday insights from Bluecore, the
company that’s ensuring retailers dominate the permanent shift to
digital through multi-channel personalization, overall Black Friday
orders increased by 26%, compared to 2019, despite retailers’
significant extension of the single-day shopping event. The
first-ever digitally dominant shopping holiday has seen a shift in
shoppers’ buying habits and resulted in varying day-of Black Friday
performance with respect to first and second-time buyers. The
complete report is available for download here.
For the third year in a row, Bluecore looked at shoppers’
real-time and historical Black Friday buying patterns and product
interactions (including purchases) across 159 retail brands
in multiple retail categories: Apparel (52), Footwear (15), Home
(15), Technology (10), Beauty (11), Jewelry (10) and Other
(41).
Bluecore derived data from 1.5 billion first-party cookies, 1
billion cart events, 4.4 million unique products, 58.8
million orders and $7.1 billion in total sales. The
resulting insights are based on analysis of a total of 9.7
billion shopper events on these brands’ ecommerce sites,
including shoppers adding products to cart, conducting keyword
searches, viewing products and completing sales transactions.
Bluecore compared this year’s day-of Black Friday behaviors to
Black Friday 2019, and in one case October 2020 (the unofficial
start of the 2020 holiday season, kicking off with Amazon’s Prime
Day) and May 2020 (the unofficial indicator of the acceleration to
ecommerce, which saw Black Friday-like sales).
Bluecore’s 2020 Black Friday Report reveals that an average of
59% of retailers’ Black Friday sales were from first-time buyers.
Of all retail categories, Jewelry saw the largest decrease in
first-time buyers (-11%) but largest increase in second-time buyers
(+13%) compared to 2019. All retail categories except for Jewelry
and Footwear saw a decrease in second-time buyers, while only
Beauty, Home and Technology saw an increase in First-Time
Buyers.
Key Findings from Bluecore’s Black Friday 2020 Report,
Include:
- There was a 26% average increase in Black Friday orders,
compared to 2019. All retail categories, except footwear, saw
an increase in orders. By category: Apparel (+7%), Beauty (+46%),
Footwear (-10%), Home (+42%), Jewelry (+38%), Technology
(+43%).
- An average of 59% of all sales were made by first-time
buyers. Home Goods saw the most first-time shoppers with 65% of
all purchases made by new customers, compared to Apparel (50%),
Beauty (51%), Footwear (62%), Jewelry (64%) and Technology
(61%).
- Technology, Beauty and Home saw an increase in first-time
buyers, compared to 2019, while others saw a decrease. By
Category: Technology (+12%), Beauty (+6%), Home (+1%), Jewelry
(-11%), Apparel (-3%), and Footwear (-1%).
- Purchases from second-time buyers either decreased or
remained stagnant in all categories except Jewelry, compared to
2019. By Category: Apparel (-2%), Beauty (-1%), Footwear (+/-
0%), Home (-8%), Jewelry (+13%) and Technology (-3%).
- Shoppers viewed products an average of 6 times in advance of
Black Friday. Advance product views, by category: Apparel (7),
Beauty (8), Jewelry (6), Home (5); Footwear (6); and Technology
(6). The average number of products viewed, by category: Apparel
(4), Beauty (4), Jewelry (4), Home (3); Footwear (3); and
Technology (1).
- Twenty-eight percent (28%) of shoppers viewed Black Friday
products at least one month in advance of purchase. Views by
Category: Apparel (31%), Beauty (40%), Footwear (25%), Home (23%),
Jewelry (30%) and Technology (32%).
- With the exception of Footwear, all retail categories saw an
increase in site traffic compared to Black Friday 2019: Apparel
(+1%), Beauty (+11%), Footwear (-13%), Home (+12%), Jewelry (+17%),
Technology (+18%).
“Black Friday’s numbers this year are a strong indicator of
retailers’ ability to not only successfully adapt their businesses
to meet consumers where they are, but also to influence shopping
habits, during this first-ever digitally dominant holiday season,”
said Fayez Mohamood, CEO of Bluecore. “With an average of 59% of
all purchases made by first-time shoppers, retailers are now
presented with a massive opportunity to turn these first-time
shoppers into repeat buyers before the end of the year. First-time
shoppers are most likely to make a second-time purchase within 100
days of their first purchase, so an immediate focus on retention
through thoughtful targeting, rather than steep discounts, will be
critical to maintaining growth and profitability in 2021.”
Bluecore’s AI-driven technology allows retailers to launch
completely personalized multi-channel campaigns at scale by
curating products, content, and offers, specific to each shopper
based on their interactions with the brand. The company drives
significant increases in revenue with less effort for the 400+
retail brands it works with, including Express, Tommy Hilfiger and
The North Face. By connecting first-party shopper data, onsite
behavioral data and most uniquely, retailers’ live product
catalogues, Bluecore automates the recommendations that will
convert shoppers.
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About Bluecore
Bluecore is a marketing technology company that’s reimagining
how the world’s fastest growing retail brands transform casual
shoppers into lifetime customers. Through its patented retail data
model and the recent release of Bluecore Communicate™ and Bluecore
Site™, brands are now able to personalize 100% of communications
delivered to consumers through their email and ecommerce shopping
experiences. Bluecore replaces manual processes with an
intelligent, AI-driven workflow, allowing brands to manage these
communications through a single interface. In 2019, the company bet
big on itself when it introduced the industry’s first
shared-success pricing model. It’s now credited with doubling email
revenue, and increasing customer retention, lifetime value and
overall speed to marketing for more than 400 brands, including
Express, Tommy Hilfiger, The North Face, Teleflora and Bass Pro
Shops.
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Kieran Powell Kieran.Powell@Bluecore.com