£6.77bn will be spent on UK online retail sites over the Black Friday peak period this year, according to new research.
• £6.77bn forecast to be spent over the Black Friday peak period (Monday 21 – Monday 28 November 2016)
• £1.27bn to be spent on Black Friday (+16% higher than same day 2015)
• £3.45bn (51%) of total to be completed through mobile devices (smartphones and tablets)
£6.77bn will be spent on UK online retail sites over the Black Friday peak period this year, according to new research.
The study, from IMRG, supported by SimilarWeb data, made the predictions for the period Monday 21 – Monday 28 November 2016, as the annual Christmas shopping event continues to evolve in duration and scale.
The forecast is based on UK online retail sales data from IMRG and online retail site traffic volume data from SimilarWeb.
51% of that total is expected to be completed through mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) – with smartphones accounting for a larger share of mobile device sales (53% – £1.83bn) than tablets for the first time.
The ‘Black Friday peak period’ started out as a single day of discounting activity, which then became a weekend (in 2014), an extended period (in 2015) and now looks set to span an entire week on average – during which time we anticipate that a high volume of pre-Christmas sales will be made.
IMRG, supported by SimilarWeb data, is also forecasting a +16% rise in spend on retail sites on Black Friday itself, bringing the total up to £1.27bn – although exactly how the week’s spend will be spread out across each of the days making up the Black Friday period remains the key question to be settled.
Justin Opie, MD at IMRG: “Black Friday as an event has shown a remarkable capacity for evolving each year and it seems set to change further this year. How the spend is spread across the days of the week depends on two things. Firstly, while there is no consensus on campaign durations among retailers, some are likely to try launching theirs earlier in the Black Friday week this year to secure their share of spend and steal a march on their competitors (indeed, some major retailers have already launched theirs). The other key factor concerns how shoppers actually respond – how early will they be willing to start their Christmas shopping, will many just wait until the Black Friday day itself, will they respond quickly to campaigns, pulling order volumes forward from Black Friday and potentially creating new peak days in the process? These are the questions that will shape how this period evolves in 2016.”
Nitzan Tamari, VP marketing at SimilarWeb: “Looking back at the 2015 holiday season, we can see that Black Friday was the highest online traffic day in the UK with a 34% increase in visits versus other days in the season. Boxing Day comes in at a close second. We are closely monitoring our desktop and mobile web data both in the UK and globally in order to understand if those trends continue this year, and we look forward to reporting on the Christmas Season shopping results with IMRG in a few weeks.”
How Black Friday has evolved
Between 2010 and 2013, Black Friday gradually built up momentum with campaigns typically just focusing on the day itself. Then in 2014 Black Friday became a huge event in the UK, overtaking Cyber Monday as the peak pre-Christmas online shopping day and extending over a four-day weekend – becoming the ‘Black Friday period’ rather than being exclusively focused on the day itself.
Last year (2015), some retailers launched their campaigns in the days leading up to Black Friday – extending the peak period still further with the bulk of activity occurring between Thursday 26 and Monday 30 November. This year we anticipate that it will extend again still further on the whole, to cover a longer period in the lead-up to Black Friday.
How it compares with last year
Total estimated spend for the 4-day peak weekend in 2015 was £3.3bn. Broken down as follows:
• Black Friday: £1.1bn
• Saturday 28th: £561m
• Sunday 29th: £676m
• Monday 30th: £968m
Note – the 2015 estimate is not a direct comparison in terms of timeframe as the peak period seems set to shift this year.