Black Friday 2022 has been dubbed a record success for online shopping. Despite concerns about the impact of post-pandemic economic instability and inflation-driven price hikes, online shoppers delivered and retailers raked in more than $9 billion on Black Friday 2022 alone! Cyber Monday online sales also hit a record $11 billion, and industry experts are saying that the results are driven by demand, not just inflation.
Coveo customer data, in aggregate, also shows evidence of this trend. We saw an increase in traffic the weeks leading up to Black Friday weekend when compared to 2021 vs a spike on the weekend alone. Furthermore, the 2022 Black Friday & Cyber Monday weekend generated 17% more revenue for our retail customers who were live & tracking both for the 2021 & 2022 Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend — as compared to last year.
The successes inherent in this year’s online shopping results so far fall in line with predictions in Coveo’s recent consumer reports, which assessed shoppers’ plans for the holiday season. The findings, based on a summer survey of 4,000 adults in the U.S and U.K, included some good news for brands, especially in terms of ecommerce.
The most striking consumer sentiment stat reflects the resulting market figures is as follows:
A whopping 86% of consumer respondents said they plan to shop online the same or more this November and December than they did prior to the pandemic. Online sales during the Black Friday peak broke records last week, supporting the consumer sentiment around online shopping in the earlier survey. The vast majority of consumers planned to shop online later in the year and they showed up.
Another consumer sentiment stat that rang true was that shoppers started hunting for deals early. In fact, 45% of our consumer respondents said that they were planning to be out bargain hunting earlier than prior years because of the current economy.
If consumers were able to accurately predict their behavior with regards to upping their 2022 online shopping months ago, it is worthwhile to review what else consumers told us they were planning for this shopping spree. Hindsight is always 20/20 but, for brands, the preparation for the online shopping peak is critical and a long haul that takes months of advance planning. Any tips from the shoppers themselves are useful! And with shoppers holding steadfast and buying confidently online, we are watching to see what other scenarios they envisioned will also play out this December:
There may still be ways to leverage some of the consumer sentiment analysis throughout December. For example, when supply chain issues strike, consider redirecting shoppers to products at local stores:
…and for maintaining customer loyalty, consider offering donations to social causes for certain product purchases:
These visualizations of the consumer data are from Coveo’s new infographic, which shows the key highlights of its holiday shopping consumer sentiment analysis, depicting how some of the consumer outlook trends have come to fruition and some that we may yet still see in December as holiday shopping continues.
