2018 Black Friday and Cyber Monday: The Numbers Are In

T-Minus 4 weeks until 2019, but who’s counting? Consumers are racing the clock to select just the right gifts, pick them up (or more likely have them delivered), and get them wrapped in time—all without breaking the bank. It’s also a stressful time for retailers following months of forecasting, planning, and strategic inventory management to meet the increase in demand. Though, all that preparation for good reason.

The year’s BFCM weekend, yet again, shattered past years’ numbers. The crazy part? Despite record sales, the seasonal peak is just getting started. According to NRF, most consumers completed less than half of their holiday shopping during BFCM 2018.

So what’s in store for the remainder of the season? Only time will tell. Until then, here’s a look at the latest and greatest from the four-day shopping frenzy…

By the Numbers

• More than 165 million people shopped during Thanksgiving weekend. (NRF)
• Consumers placed more Black Friday orders on their phones than desktops for the first time ever. (AdWeek)
• Kohl’s sold 60 Instant Pots and 40 Fitbit devices online per minute on Thanksgiving. (CNBC)
• Amazon announced Cyber Monday 2018 was its biggest shopping day ever, topping sales from Prime Day 2018 just 6 months ago. (CNET)
• NRF reported a 73% growth in the use of Instagram to find deals, and a 45% increase in the use of Pinterest. (Forbes)
• Combined, U.S. shoppers spent 10,000 years shopping on Cyber Monday. (ClickZ) That’s the equivalent of watching The Grinch 47.7 million times.

Then and Now

According to Adobe, U.S. consumers spent $6.5 billion online during Black Friday and $7.9 billion during Cyber Monday—up from $5.03 billion and $6.59 billion in 2017, respectively. (AdWeek and CNET)

Shopify merchants processed more than $1.5 billion in spend during the 4-day Black Friday Cyber Monday event—up from $1 billion last year. (Shopify)

While overall sales were up, ShopperTrak reported a 1.7% decline of in-store visits and NRF estimated there were 10 million fewer people in stores on Black Friday compared to 2017. (Chain Store Age and Marketing Land)

As the holiday shopping season continues to unfold, here are a couple trends we’re keeping our eye on:

• An influx of omnichannel shopping including increased use of flexible, buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) options—especially for those last-minute shoppers
• Increasingly, social will be an important channel to drive sales in addition to product discovery
• Competitive delivery promises will make or break online sales

You might also be interested in:

• Article: Q4 2021 Market Watch: Holiday Peak Season Part 3
• Article: Top 3 Constraints Shippers Face Heading into Peak Season
• Article: Q4 2021 Market Watch: Holiday Peak Season Part 1