Christmas ‘now a mobile-first season’, Qubit

Average online basket values were lower this Black Friday than on an average day, with mobile a major factor in poor performance, according to Qubit research. Retailers left a lot of money on the table by not catching up with changing consumer habits, it claims. For the first time a majority of shoppers used mobile to browse for Black Friday, yet this channel only accounted for a third of retailer revenue - revenue per visitor (RPV) was 55.0% lower on mobile than on desktop, which only makes up a third of all Black Friday traffic. The trend continued across the weekend; average order values were actually slightly higher on Saturday compared to Friday, and mobile traffic was also higher. 

Black Friday average order value (AOV) fell 16.39% to £102; online UK shoppers spent an average of £20.12 less than they did last year. Overall, basket values were far below those of an average day (£123.15). Though the conversion rate was lowest on Saturday (2.82%, vs 3.62% on Black Friday and 3.18% on Sunday), shoppers placed the highest orders on this day (£103.38 AOV, vs £102.64 AOV on Black Friday and £96.21 AOV on Sunday).

"What did we learn last Friday? Christmas is now a mobile-first season,” says Graham Cooke, CEO, Qubit. “Retailers are a facing a megatrend that’s coming through loud and clear in the data from Black Friday. The holiday season is the biggest online event of the year, and it’s now mobile-first. Traditional mobile sites just aren’t designed for the way people want to discover and buy online. The channel is a ‘leaky bucket’ with consistently less RPV than on desktop. This is a hard problem to solve, but we believe those retailers who put a focus on their mobile experience and employ technology like artificial intelligence, will game-change their mobile revenue for Black Friday 2018.”