Black Friday Ecommerce: Stats and Trends

Last Updated
May 4, 2021

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Black Friday has been the biggest online shopping event in Europe and North America over the past decade, and the growth looks set to continue.

In this collection of ecommerce statistics, we look at some key historical stats around Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Black Friday sales in the US

Black Friday 2020 saw record levels of spending, according to Adobe data. Shoppers spent $9 billion on Black Friday, up 21.6% from the previous year, making it the highest individual day for ecommerce up to that point.

Adobe stats show the growth of online sales on Black Friday, with a total of $7.4bn spent by US shoppers in 2019.

UK Black Friday sales

Though Black Friday was originally a US invention, it’s spread elsewhere, and has now become a regular sales event in the UK.

US sales and traffic by device

Adobe stats show the whole holiday period, which covers Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Those two days are also the biggest single online sales days during that period, and account for much of the money spent online.

Desktop account for less traffic than mobile (37%) but takes 59% of purchases, while people were more likely to browse on mobile but convert on desktop.

Tablets hold their own here – just 5% of traffic, but also the same percentage of sales. People are clearly happy to browse and buy via tablet.

UK Black Friday traffic and sales by device

Black Friday has become more mobile over the years, with the majority of traffic to UK retailers coming from mobile devices for the past few years.

Often sales have lagged behind, with people being happier to browse on a mobile phone than they are to actually buy.

So, in 2019, desktop accounted for 28% of traffic but delivered 43% of revenue for retailers on Black Friday.

Mobile vs desktop conversion rates: Cyber Monday 2019

Adobe data shows us conversion rates for Cyber Monday, with mobile conversions lagging behind smartphone and tablet.

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Most purchased products on Amazon: Black Friday 2019

Amazon data from 2019 shows how much the retailer was pushing its own products in deals, with the Echo Dot and Fire TV Stick dominating the top four products.