Shopify notches up record breaking Black Friday
Canadian e-commerce platform giant Shopify has announced a record setting Black Friday with sales of nearly $2.9 billion from the start of Black Friday in New Zealand through the end of the event in California.
This represents a 21% increase over 2020 when sales by Shopify merchants surged 75% over 2019 driven by Covid-19 lockdowns, and is more than double their sales on 2019.
Collectively, merchants on Shopify generated peak sales of nearly $3.1 million per minute at 12:02 PM EST on Black Friday, and merchants crossed $1 billion in sales by 4:00am EST, four hours earlier than in 2020.
"Every year, Black Friday represents one of the largest single day sales moments for entrepreneurs around the world, and this year it was bigger than ever," says Harley Finkelstein, President at Shopify.
"From in-store retailers, to online, and even viral TikTok must-haves, these Black Friday sales show that independent businesses are having a massive impact on global commerce. Consumer support of independent brands is at an all time high.”
Meanwhile, on UK high streets…
Black Friday UK high street shopper traffic saw a +35% uplift week-on-week, but early festive footfall failed to drive numbers to pre-pandemic levels, which were down -23% compared to 2019.
Andy Sumpter, EMEA Retail Consultant at Sensormatic Solutions, whose footfall index captures over 40 billion global shopper visits annually, comments: “Despite not reaching pre-pandemic levels, Christmas has started to come early for high street retailers, who will be welcoming the Black Friday boost to trade that traditionally marks the start of the festive season.”
“Over the past 12 months, we have seen a slow but steady resurgence of high street shopping, as consumer confidence has grown and demand for in-person shopping has risen.”
Black Friday footfall was bolstered by an early surge in Christmas shopping, with consumers choosing to buy early in a bid to avoid supply chain disruption, out-of-stocks and shipping delays to festive gifts.
Research of 1,000 UK shoppers showed 79% had planned to start Christmas shopping before the beginning of December, with 34% starting gift buying in November, up +7 percentage points compared to 2020.
57% are more price sensitive now compared to before the pandemic, according to Pricer data. Shoppers hit the high street to make the most of the deals during the discounting event yesterday.
“Retailers will be hoping that initial Black Friday success doesn’t turn into a ‘blue Monday’ and that demand can be sustained into December, their most crucial trading period,” Sumpter says.
“That relies on smoothing out bumps in supply chains to reduce shelf gaps, so consumers can be confident the items they want will be available when they shop, as well as leveraging Click and Collect capabilities in-store to ease the burden on the digital fulfilment network when demand rises.”
