E-Commerce Sales Are Forecast To Make Black Friday and Cyber Monday Bigger Than Ever
The growth of e-commerce has caused the lines between Black Friday and Cyber Monday to blur even further. A new study by BounceX has forecast that Black Friday’s digital traffic will continue to outpace that of Cyber Monday, at a greater rate than in 2018.
“Black Friday & Cyber Monday are the two biggest days of the year for online shopping,” said the report by BounceX. “We dug into hundreds of millions of buying signals across thousands of e-commerce sites over the past five holiday seasons to discover how consumers shop online during this pivotal time period and predict what the holiday landscape will look like in 2019.”
BounceX predicts that an increasing number of shoppers will choose to take advantage of Black Friday deals through online channels, turning away from brick-and-mortar. This would lead to Black Friday receiving 7% more digital traffic than Cyber Monday, its greatest margin in the last five years; Cyber Monday saw 13% more traffic in 2015.
But this growth for Black Friday does not mean bad news for Cyber Monday. Both shopping days are forecast to see considerably higher conversions than average, according to the BounceX report. Site visits are expected to more than double for both Black Friday (134%) and Cyber Monday (144%), while conversion rates are expected to increase by 22.8% and 36.2% respectively. This will result in an average growth of 29.7% from last year’s sales.
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While increases are predicted across all digital channels, mobile sales are expected to account for the majority of the holiday sales for the first time in 2019. BounceX predicts 52% of sales will occur on mobile, with 43% on desktop and 5% on tablet, across the holiday weekend. This will be the third consecutive year that mobile conversions have grown at a faster rate than other digital channels.
The anticipated higher volumes of traffic and conversions are positive developments for retailers, but only if they can keep up with demand. A strong technology infrastructure and an organized order fulfillment system will be necessary to meet customer expectations, if BounceX’s forecast proves correct.
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