Apparel, Beauty, and Electronics are expected to reach 70% of consumers' spending this Christmas

ATHENS, Greece - Dec. 10, 2018 - PRLog -- With the Christmas sales approaching, this new Black Friday report detects the 9 key eCommerce trends to help retailers boost their sales during Holiday season.

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NEW YORK - ContactPigeon, the all-in-one marketing automation SaaS solution,  recently released Black Friday 2018 Report with detailed eCommerce insights observed from the most recent Black Friday sales, to help retailers boost their sales during the upcoming Christmas sales.

The report examines key trends in retailer and consumer behaviors exhibited from eCommerce activities gathered from 250+ brands and 3rd party sources across Europe and North America during Black Friday 2018. The most interesting insights within the report were summed up in an infographic.

Key findings include:

• Compared to the same 24-hour period, Black Friday eCommerce sales grew 23% year over year.
• Average order value (basket size) increased 9% since 2017.
• Apparels and Accessories was the most popular category this Black Friday making up approximately 25% of all online orders. This is followed by Beauty & Personal Care products and Electronics at 21% and 20% of orders respectively.
• Popular searches among consumers in the USA are Walmart, Amazon, Best Buy, Target, Kohl's & Macy's in the USA. While in Europe shoppers are looking at Argos, Amazon, eBay, Curry's, Media Markt, H&M, and Zara.
• For online retailers, busiest shopping hours were between 12-1pm and 8-9pm.
• Half of the orders made this Black Friday were shopped via mobile devices, a 3% increase since last year marking a milestone for mobile-based shopping trend.
• 26% of the online shoppers visit the brand's website directly this year, underscoring the importance of brand awareness and promotion in advance of Black Friday.
• Email marketing alone brought in nearly 20% of eCommerce sales across all retailers, outweighing contributions via paid advertisement and social media channels.
• More retailers are adopting automated marketing tactics as part of their Black Friday promotions, generating 7% of the total sales outcome. Automated popup messages are amongst the most effective in converting visitors, with sales attribution at 4% of total order volume.

Black Friday 2018 just hit another peak in total online retail sales after grown 23% year over year since 2017. In the United States alone, Black Friday weekend generated $18B in total revenue. Similar growth rates are seen across the European markets. Today, Black Friday has become a global shopping phenomenon that eCommerce marketer can no longer afford to ignore.

Notable Trend #1: Extended Black Friday "Week"

A new trend observed this year is the extension of Black Friday into a Black Friday "week", as retailers launched pre-sales and promotional deals as early as the weekend prior to actual Black Friday. The sales continue into Cyber Monday, the Monday following Thanksgiving, and even days after. This trend is particularly notable among European retailers.

The introduction of Black Friday "Week" allowed well-prepared retailers to stay a step ahead of the competition, but also beneficial in alleviating the traffic bottleneck experienced by many websites during Black Friday.

Notable Trend #2: Adoption of Marketing Automation Grows

Email marketing has been around for lots of years and it's penetration as a marketing tactic is unquestionable. However, as competition rises, brands are forced to evolve and adapt "next generation" marketing tactics, including Marketing Automation software. This Black Friday, personalize triggered messages and campaigns generated nearly 7% of total sales.

"We are excited to see the increasing use of automated personalized messages among online retailers. We expect the trend to continue as technologies improve to deliver more on-target and timely interactions with shoppers both on and off the website." - George Moirotsos, CEO & Co-Founder, ContactPigeon

You can find the full report here:
https://blog.contactpigeon.com/black-friday-report-2018/