The five shopping days of Christmas
A new report from digital market intelligence agency SimilarWeb has confirmed that Black Friday is now the single biggest day for online traffic to UK retailers. The report, The Rise of The UK Mega Shopping Day, found that overall five “Mega Shopping Days” are now responsible for the biggest one-day spikes in the retail calendar: the day before Black Friday (this year falling on 26 November, which is Thanksgiving in the US); Black Friday (27 November); Cyber Monday (30 November); Christmas Day (25 December); and Boxing Day (26 December).
According to SimilarWeb: “Black Friday set the biggest one-day shopping peak last year, recording a 14% rise in traffic in 2014 and the biggest spike of traffic for retailers (5.2%) in the period from 26 November to 26 December. The day created major one-day boosts for individual retailers, with H&M seeing a 111% rise in online visits, Sports Direct, 96% and John Lewis 77%.”
SimilarWeb added: “While Black Friday leads the pack of online shopping days, the joint second-placed Mega Day in the list is US Thanksgiving, the day before. This fellow US import registered a 30% increase in desktop traffic last year (a 4.2% of daily share of the busiest period of the year) and several electronics retailers celebrated Thanksgiving with one-day traffic wins of 252% (Game) 243% (PC World) and 195% (Currys).
“In joint second place was Boxing Day, which saw no increase in growth from 2013 but grabbed a 4.2% daily share of festive traffic. The day looks set to once again be dominated by DIY and home furnishing retailers – winners for the biggest Boxing Day spikes last year were IKEA, (84% rise in traffic), B&Q (80%) and Homebase (63%).”
Cyber Monday does tend to lag behind Thanksgiving and Black Friday, but it still secured a 9% rise in traffic since 2013.
The fifth day of Christmas shopping is Christmas Day itself which, commented SimilarWeb, “saw a 3.4% share of one-day traffic, as many Britons turned their backs on festive traditions to shop online, mainly on clothing sites”.
Amazon and eBay are still the website giants with combined visits of around 10 million on these major sales days which, said SimilarWeb, “represented 25% more traffic than the next largest online 23 retailers combined”.
The SimilarWeb study also reported that the shift in shopping to smartphones and tablets is also set to continue this festive shopping season. “Last year,” said SimilarWeb, “consumers used their smartphones and tablets 62% of the time they were browsing the UK’s top online retailers’ website.”
Commenting on the findings, Joel Zand, Digital insights manager at SimilarWeb said: “In the space of only two years the festive shopping habits of UK consumers has changed beyond recognition. Several companies are adopting promotions and campaigns capitalising on the shift in consumer behaviour and the rise of these new sales days. This is bringing people online earlier and in bigger numbers than we have ever seen.
“Retailers are also appreciating that the majority of their customers are now browsing and buying over this period on their smartphones, creating the added challenge of offering a seamless service across all touch points on the busiest shopping dates of the year.”
