Cyber Long Weekend 2020 Recap: How Did It All Pay Out
Today we'll go through what went down during Cyber Week 2020 - the what, the when, the where and the big question - how much of our rent money did we spend buying all the things?!
2020 is a year we won't forget.
Bushfires ravaged the country (feels like a lifetime ago but it was only THIS YEAR GUYS).
Toilet paper madness.
Lockdowns.
A global pandemic.
And the record for the most money spent online in a day (EVER!?)
After the year we've had, we NEEDED retail therapy to boost our weary souls.
And the warm up forecasts were REAL.
ING projected that 8.3 million Aussies were planning to spend big in the 2020 Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. That's over a third of the population ready to Add to Cart to spend, and save, big.
And boy did we show up! AustPost states that as a nation we set a new record with online shopping growth up +42 per cent on the same period last year. Spare a thought for your regular postie because there are now 13 million parcels flying all over the country.
Compared to the rest of the world, Shopify awards Australia as the 2nd highest spending country with an average order value (AOV) of $105.50 (USD), second only to Japan's AOV of $106.40 (USD). This was followed by Canada ($103 USD) and the US ($92.80).
That's a HUGE deal, considering that Adobe reports consumers spent $24.11B over Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. Over $24 BILLION.
Consumers Spend Closer to Home (literally, Home categories)
What did we even BUY that could have amounted to that kind of money?!
Comes as no surprise that we were nesting because if we're going to be spending more time at home, we might as well like our surrounds! Australia Post reports that saw the Home & Garden category jump +50% up on last year, followed by Fashion & Apparel and Variety Stores, up 41% and 20% respectively.
This increased time at home also meant more time to spend with our expensive furry friends aka pandemic puppies, with Animal & Pet Supplies category up +42% on Super Sunday vs last year.
Big Commerce reports the optimists came out on Black Friday and boosted the Travel category to a crazy 569% compared to same day last year - clearly showing that the desire to travel is still very much alive and many are hopeful for 2021.
Category spend varied according to the platform you were using, with Apparel, Accessories and Home & Garden all performing well on Shopify and Facebook. But if it was Auto, Food & Beverage or Sports & Outdoors you were looking to buy off Amazon.
Adobe listed the below to be the most in-demand items:
Apple AirPods
Air Fryers
HP and Dell computers
Chromecast
Star Wars toys (understandable, Baby Yoda is pretty friggin cute)
Hot Wheels sets
Lego
vTech-brand toys
NERF
Cyber Monday trumps Black Friday
This was always going to be the way.
We've been conditioned to wait for the deeper markdowns on Monday, only purchasing earlier on Friday the items that were likely to sell out beforehand.
For this reason, Cyber Monday was the clear winner cashing in $10.8B, followed by Black Friday at $9.03B and Small Business Saturday bringing in $4.68B.
But this year the further markdowns were more in our head rather than reality, according to Kristin McGrath editor of BlackFriday.com, whose job it is to monitor web deals. Bloomberg confirms that it was mainly a handful of popular products with limited stock that had the better discounts on Cyber Monday to draw the crowds, with the hopes they'd get clicky-happy and add more to cart once consumers were through the virtual door.
But when Adobe compared the days side-by-side, the discounts at category level were minimal, with only sporting goods and toys going a further 2% on markdowns from Black Friday to Cyber Monday, electronics a mere 1%, and computers and appliances staying much the same. It is however projected that discounts are expected to lessen by 5-10% in the lead-up to Christmas.