EXCLUSIVE: Amazon drives successful Black Friday week for retail
A strategic promotional move by Amazon helped produce significant overall growth during the Black Friday – Cyber Monday period.
According to new data exclusively emailed to Chain Store Age from Spreetail, an e-commerce accelerator specializing in online sales and logistics for oversized and bulky products, this year marked the biggest Black Friday and Cyber Monday in its history.
[READ MORE: Salesforce: Cyber Week digital sales reach $76 billion in U.S.]
In addition, Spreetail recorded 40% year-over-year sales growth in what it calls the "Turkey 12," or the period between the Thursday before Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.
The company credited Amazon’s decision to hold its Black Friday-Cyber Monday event during these days as a key factor in broader retail industry success.
"Amazon's extended Turkey 12 season was a game-changer, pulling sales forward from Cyber Five,” Joshua Ketter, CEO of Spreetail, said in comments emailed to Chain Store Age. Whether this reflects a pull-forward effect or a true seasonal lift remains to be seen, but they’ve undeniably reshaped how consumers shop.”
Other key findings include:
- Amazon wins the holiday shopping window Amazon’s growth outpaced other channels by approximately 10% over the 12-day shopping period on the Spreetail platform.
- Consumer interest shifts Leading into the holiday, searches for Apple’s AirPods and watches were down 40%, while Beats headphones were up more than 100% compared to the same period in 2023, according to Spreetail analysis. In addition, searches for Awala water bottles grew approximately300% year-over-year.
- Cyber Monday resulted in larger purchases Shoppers on Cyber Monday demonstrated willingness to spend a lot of money on a single online shopping cart, with items greater than $500 seeing the greatest year-over-year conversion lift (44%) recorded by Spreetail during the holiday shopping period.
- Prices were only slightly lower While there were more promotions than ever before, when comparing same items to their prices in 2023, Spreetail found the average deal price was only 1.5% lower. However, in the durable goods product category prices were down by as much as 10% compared to the prior year.
- Shoppers got a head start Spreetail saw a 110% traffic increase from the Wednesday night prior to Thanksgiving through Black Friday, equating to 2.5 million additional visitors who were shopping for holiday deals.
"By offering deeper discounts and an aggressive promotional strategy compared to previous years, Amazon successfully prioritized value and incentivized shoppers," stated Ketter.
