Mobile Dominates eCommerce Holiday Sales, Demonstrates Shift in Brick-and-Mortar Black Friday Shopping Traditions

Bargain hunters across the nation were pushed to stay indoors this year, with hundreds of stores, including the largest mall in America, choosing to close their doors on Thanksgiving Day for the first time in decades. Brick-and-mortar Black Friday sales dropped a whopping $1 Billion in 2015, and this year has followed suit with a further 5% decline. The diminishing brick-and-mortar Black Friday tradition is actually a tremendous boost for online retailers.

Consumers set new records for online sales this year across Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Bounceback Tuesday, marking a 15.7% YoY increase in transactions compared to online holiday sales last year. On Black Friday, 53% of visitors browsed products on mobile devices; however, desktops still exceeded mobile in actual conversion with 62% of purchases occurring on desktop compared to 38% on mobile. Criteo's deep-dive into consumer browsing and buying activity found:

The Rise of "e-Black Friday" Drives Digital Success

Taking the reins from the brick-and-mortar market, online retailers shocked the industry with a new record of Black Friday digital transactions. The rise of this "e-Black Friday" even trumps the traditionally digital Cyber Monday holiday. Black Friday online shoppers accounted for 33.7% of sales in eCommerce transactions on the three major sales days.

• The tablet is tanking: Tablet transactions are down 25% YoY on Android and 12% YoY on iPads.
• Smartphones are soaring - and iPhones remain on top:
  • iPhone user growth increased 59% vs. 18% for Android phone.
  • iPhone transaction growth increased 58% vs. 27% for Android phone.
• The hunt for the best price: Consumers were 70% more likely to visit competing retailer websites on Black Friday.
• Desktop Continues to Stay Relevant: Mobile devices are winning when it comes to number of users, but desktop still converts browsers to buyers -- garnering an 11% conversion rate vs. 5-6% on smartphones.

Cyber Monday Driven by Mobile Growth

Cyber Monday sales this year did not disappoint, with transactions increasing 15.1% over 2015. And this digital holiday is increasingly going more mobile year after year. Consumers still take a complex path to purchase across all devices, and this year mobile expanded its reach with 31.1% of overall sales the Monday after Thanksgiving, a 156% increase from 2015. Though mobile growth is strong, it has yet to surpass desktop, which garnered 68.9% of online transactions this year.

• Different devices for different days: Mobile [outperforms desktop] on Black Friday, but desktop overtakes mobile on Cyber Monday with 68.9% of total transactions.

Completing the path to purchase: Cyber Monday saw the highest cart propensity – the number of consumers adding items to their carts – with an index value of 154.3, surpassing both Black Friday at 147.2 and Bounceback Tuesday at 153.8.

Bounceback Tuesday Helps Retailers Pass New Milestone

Shoppers this 1year rode the bargain hype long past Black Friday, taking advantage of sales spreading further into the week. Criteo-defined "Bounceback Tuesday" (the day right after Cyber Monday where advertisers are actively re-engaging shoppers for additional sales) proved to be the golden ticket for many retailers. 

• Maintaining momentum: Bounceback Tuesday saw steady growth in 2016 with a 14.8% YoY increase in transactions and a 10.1% YoY increase in shoppers.
• Smartphones drive mobile sales: While conversions on mobile increased 5.8% year over year, tablet shopping saw the steepest decline on Bounceback Tuesday, decreasing 12.3% YoY.

"Mastering smartphone e-commerce continues to be a top priority for online retailers," said Jaysen Gillespie, Head of Data Science and Analytics at Criteo. "Not only are record numbers of users now transacting directly on smartphones but these users are also leveraging the smartphone to research transactions that ultimately materialize later on other devices.  Marketers and marketing vendors who can correctly connect users across devices, via their own cross-device identity or the use of a third-party open-system identity graph, will boost marketing efficiency and gain valuable insights on the path-to-purchase."  

To learn more visit http://www.criteo.com/resources/holidays/.

Methodology

These findings were pulled from original Criteo data and an analysis of over 350 retailers and 29.9 million online transactions during the 2016 Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Bounceback Tuesday shopping holidays. All indexes are measured against a baseline of Nov 1 – Nov 14 data.

About Criteo

Criteo (NASDAQ: CRTO) delivers personalized performance marketing at an extensive scale. Measuring return on post-click sales, Criteo makes ROI transparent and easy to measure. Criteo has over 2,200 employees in 30 offices across the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific, serving 13,000 advertisers worldwide and with direct relationships with 17,500 publishers.

Media Contact:
Kenya Hayes
[email protected]
(703) 589-7595

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SOURCE Criteo