Thanksgiving shopping: what can we learn from the 2015 data?
With the upcoming 2016 Thanksgiving holiday, the US market undoubtedly becomes a battleground for retailers. Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the three biggest shopping periods during the Thanksgiving holiday. Chinese sellers are often busy preparing goods and offering discounts during these three days. However, according to an online spending survey by Adobe, the habits of American consumers have changed significantly in recent years. (Learn about popular holidays in the second half of the year).
Let’s have a look at the data from last year: during the four-day Thanksgiving weekend of 2015 (Thursday to Sunday), American consumers spent a total of $8.3 billion, an 11% increase over 2014. Combined with Cyber Monday, the Americans spent a total of $11.1 billion, an increase of 17% compared to 2014.
Data Source: Adobe Digital Insights
Thanksgiving: Biggest Discounts, Lowest Spending
While the discounts offered on Thanksgiving Day were the biggest (26% average discount of original item prices), the volume of online spending was the lowest, about 60 percent of the amount on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The brick-and-mortar spending in US retail stores came to $1.8 billion, slightly lower than $2 billion of the previous year. Seems that Thanksgiving dinner still takes precedence over shopping for most Americans, especially since the rise of Cyber Monday and the synchronization of sales both online and in-store.
Black Friday: Online and Offline Spending Together Made an Impact
The Black Friday discounts offered by retailers were somewhat lower than on Thanksgiving Day, but the day has turned into a frenzy across the country. With a wider range of discounts online and offline, spending was huge last year: Online spending topped $2.72 billion, and retail stores got $0.104 billion, $1 billion less than last year.
Due to the impressively low prices offered on Black Friday (often amounting to 75% off some of the highest priced electronics), most retailers had limited the supplies; the large quantity of SKUs meant that the online information could not be updated on time, thus shopping offline became a practical choice. Most retailers chose to release their discounts at midnight on Black Friday, therefore overnight queues with tents outside of Best Buys and Walmarts formed an extraordinary sight.
Some critical thinkers began to question whether Black Friday offered an opportunity for retailers to get rid of overstocked products. In fact, during 2015 Thanksgiving Day, Apple did not give any promotions (but many third party retailers offered significant discounts for Apple products).
Cyber Monday: Online Spending Peak
While Americans focused their shopping efforts offline this past Thanksgiving and Black Friday, Cyber Monday has truly become a true online sensation since it started in 2005.
Cyber Monday offers up fresh discounts and freshly stocked items, even though the discounts are smaller than Black Friday. American consumers shift their attention to the online shops to take advantage of the final opportunity of Thanksgiving promotions.
The online spending on Cyber Monday last year totaled $3.07 billion, accounting for 28% in the overall online sales volume.
General Comparison
Offline spending is still the mainstream in terms of the total volume for Thanksgiving weekend spending. However, for cross-border e-commerce retailers, Cyber Monday is the big day in regards to volume and profit margin.
Sales volumes increase from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, while the discounts offered gradually decrease. Orders placed through mobile devices reduced and online spending per capita slightly shrank. It can be understood that more consumers consider Cyber Monday a shopping holiday.
On Cyber Monday, 44% of e-commerce website traffic came from mobile devices, and 28% of orders were placed through mobile device; the conclusion to be drawn here is that people still prefer desktop or laptop shopping.
Click here to see the complete Adobe 2015 Thanksgiving Report.
Thanksgiving Weekend 2016 is less than three months away (Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 24; Black Friday, Nov. 25, Cyber Monday, Nov. 28). Are you ready? Let Payoneer help you to receive cross border payments in a quick, safe and reliable way.