News Feature | December 7, 2016

Data Reveals Ecommerce Trends For Black Friday And Cyber Monday

Christine Kern

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Walmart & Sam's Club eCommerce Site Upgrades

Cyber Monday ecommerce traffic surged at 11pm ET as shoppers rushed to find last-minute deals.

This year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales hit new heights, according to new data findings from Fastly, which  manages web traffic for the largest retail, media and social websites. They analyzed web traffic to shopping, donation, and other sites from 11/22 through Cyber Monday and the data validates a lot of the claims being made around recent holiday shopping sales.

Key Cyber Monday findings:

  • Cyber Monday e-commerce traffic surged 129 percent higher than normal at 11pm ET and remained 110 percent higher than normal at midnight ET as people rushed to take last-minute advantage of sales.
  • Overall, traffic to e-commerce sites was 39 percent higher on Cyber Monday at 9 pm ET than it was at the same time on Black Friday; meanwhile, data shows Black Friday e-commerce traffic peaked at 207 percent above average already.

Shopify also provided detailed traffic numbers, which illustrate this year’s shopping trends:

Detailed Data Breakdown:

Retail / E-commerce

  • Traffic to ecommerce sites remained higher than normal throughout the week of Thanksgiving, with more traffic overall on Cyber than Black :

Black Friday

  • 11/24 9:00 PM ET a 35 percent increase in ecommerce traffic on Thanksgiving morning as people started their holiday shopping.
  • 11/24 9:00 PM ET a 62 percent increase in ecommerce traffic Thanksgiving evening as people went online to take advantage of doorbuster sales after dinner
  • 11/25 8:00 AM ET a 53.5 percent increase as Black Friday kicked off.
  • 11/25 11 AM ET a 207 percent increase as midday approached.
  • 11/25 11 PM ET a 93 percent increase as sales concluded and shoppers rushed to complete purchases.

Cyber Monday

  • 11/27 11 PM ET a 81 percent increase in ecommerce traffic just before sales began.
  • 11/28 midnight ET a 95.5 percent increase as Cyber Monday began.
  • 11/28 noon ET traffic leveled off slightly, but remained at 83 percent above normal as sales continued.
  • 11/28 11 PM ET a 129 percent surge as people rushed to get their shopping done before sales ended at midnight.
  • 11/29 1 AM ET a 77 percent increase as midnight approaches on the west coast and shoppers hurry to make the most of Cyber Monday deals.

Black Friday sales proved to be monumental for the online retailers, as this year breaks the online sales record with $3 billion.  According to Adobe, mobile drove the majority of visits to retails websites on Black Friday at 56 percent, including 47 percent from smartphones and 9 percent from tablets, while comprising 40 percent of sales (29 percent smartphones, 11 percent tablets), for a total of more than $680 million.