BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: You’ve unlocked BLACK FRIDAY & CYBER MONDAY marketing tips! By Kat Dessenon and Dan Gingiss www.persado.com |
[email protected] 1 INTRODUCTION It’s the most wonderful time of the year – for retailers and bargain-hunting shoppers, that is. The four days in late November that encompass Black Friday, Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday are often make-or-break for retailers in terms of hitting or exceeding annual sales goals. According to the Canadian e-commerce company Shopify, merchants on its platform collectively generated more than $1 billion US in sales during those four days last year. Put into further perspective, buyers were placing orders at a rate of 2,800 per minute and spending $1 million per minute at the peak of Black Friday. The top three shopping categories: Apparel, Accessories and Housewares. Overall, according to Adobe via TechCrunch, last year’s Black Friday was a record-breaker for online sales in the U.S. – to the tune of $5 billion. Cyber Monday was even bigger for online sales, which makes sense given its digital focus. Adobe says that it was the largest online sales day in history with sales coming in at a whopping $6.59 billion. Another incredible statistic: Adobe projects that online sales will increase nearly 15% in 2018 to $124 billion during the months of November and December. And which marketing channel drives the most conversions? With apologies to Mark Twain, the reports of email’s death are greatly exaggerated. Email actually led all channels with a conversion rate of 4.29% last year, according to Shopify.