After a strong Thanksgiving holiday push in e-commerce spending, Black Friday online sales were up close to 20 percent in 2013 over the same period last year. IBM says that by their counts, sales are record-breaking.
The data, from IBM’s Benchmark real-time reporting unit, covers 800 online retailers and millions of transactions. For the day, the average order value was $135.27, up 2.2 percent year-over-year.
Mobile shopping continues to grow, as mobile traffic grew to 39.7 percent of all online traffic, an increase of 34 percent over Black Friday 2012. Mobile sales were also strong, reaching 21.8 percent of total online sales, an increase of nearly 43 percent year-over-year.
Smartphones drove 24.9 percent of all online traffic on Black Friday compared to tablets at 14.2 percent, making it the browsing device of choice. Tablets drove 14.4 percent of all online sales, double that of smartphones, which accounted for 7.2 percent of all online sales. On average, tablet users spent $132.75 per order compared to smartphone users who spent $115.63, a difference of 15 percent.
By smartphone OS, iOS users spent $127.92 per order on Black Friday compared to $105.20 per order for Android users. iOS traffic reached 28.2 percent of all online traffic, compared to 11.4 percent for Android. iOS sales reached 18.1 percent of all online sales, compared to 3.5 percent for Android. New York City took the top spot for online sales on Black Friday. Rounding out the top five were Atlanta, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Chicago
In terms of social, shoppers referred from Pinterest on Black Friday spent 77 percent more per order than shoppers referred from Facebook. Facebook average order value was $52.30 versus Pinterest average order value which was $92.51. However, Facebook referrals converted sales at
nearly four times the rate of Pinterest.
On average, IBM says more retailers were trying to engage with shoppers on their smartphones–retailers sent 37 percent more push notifications during the two day period over Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday when compared to daily averages over the past two months. Average daily retail app installations also grew by 23 percent using the same comparison. Retailers sent more notifications on Thanksgiving Day than Black Friday.
By sector, Black Friday online sales for department stores grew by 61.4 percent over 2012, with mobile percentage of sales growing by 46.4 percent. Average order value was $146.84, an increase of 15 percent year-over-year. Black Friday total online sales for health and beauty grew by 28 percent over 2012, with mobile percentage of sales growing by 65 percent. Average order value was $66.31, an increase of 3.2 percent year-over-year. For home goods, online sales grew by 16.8 percent over 2012, with mobile percentage of sales growing by 24 percent. Lastly, for apparel, online sales grew by 50.4 percent over 2012, with mobile percentage of sales growing by 43 percent. Average
order value was $123.31, an increase of 3.5 percent year-over-year.
IBM is saying that this was a record breaking Black Friday by online sales but it’s unclear what that number is–so we’ll see what comScore reports with sales over the next few days. U.S. e-commerce spending last year on Black Friday was $1.042 billion, an increase of 26 percent from 2012. Black Friday online sales actually surpassed $1 billion for the first time last year. But comScore is forecasting double-digit growth in both desktop e-commerce and m-commerce spending for the holiday season.
UPDATE: As of 11 am PT on Friday, PayPal saw a 123.9% increase in global mobile payment volume (mTPV) on Black Friday 2013 compared to Black Friday 2012.
Photo credit/Flickr/myeralan
