Black Friday 2021 Results: Shoppers Stocked up on Beauty Products and Have Fallen for Gaming

This year, Black Friday online sales didn’t go through the roof on the day itself, but grew “in width”. Even though the peak of online orders during the traditional sale dates was lower than last year, the period of high demand was lasting longer – from a few days, it has been extended to a few weeks. In recent research, Admitad Affiliate found out that European buyers were spending the most money on cosmetics and apparel. This year, much more interest in comparison to 2020 was gained by games and hotels.

According to the first estimations of experts, the volume of online sales this year on Black Friday itself slightly decreased – from $ 9 billion last year to $ 8.9 billion in 2021. This trend has a simple explanation, given that last year the sale took place during the lockdown in many countries, as a result, many buyers were forced to choose goods on the internet instead of shopping offline like they used to. This year, some users chose to return to their usual shopping process. In addition to that, many brands this year not only launched discounts early before the 26th of November, but also promised to extend them after the traditional Black Friday period. This distributes the buying activity over a much longer period.

At the same time, Admitad Affiliate states that the British increased the number of purchases this Black Friday by 72%, and the orders’ value – by 89%, compared to the regular period. The average online order value during the sales days grew by 10% and reached the mark of $46. More than half of the sales were made on various marketplaces. This year on Black Friday, 23% of online purchases in the country were made via smartphones.

The following categories of goods and services appeared to be the most popular with European buyers:

Several business industries were much more active this year and received more attention during the sale compared to 2020:

It is curious that almost all the fuses for buying goods for home and furniture were satisfied during the Singles Day Sale on the 11th of November. During Black Friday, this category did not even make it to the top list in terms of sales, although it took the top spot during the 11.11 Sale 2 weeks earlier. On the other hand, financial services came to the forefront, with the average order value growing significantly (from $13 on 11.11 to $46 this Friday).

A substantial part of users (29.7%) decided to buy on the recommendation of online media and Internet blogs. Another 26.8% of Europeans were motivated to shop on Black Friday by lucrative deals from cashback services. 14.3% of sales were driven by contextual advertising, affiliate shops (6.7%) and Facebook (4.7%). At the same time, the income of British Publishers on Black Friday in total grew by 81%.

For Europe, it is just the beginning of the sale period. Many brands still have Black Friday discounts continuing, moreover, Christmas sales and New Year’s Eve rush of buyers are around the corner. The period of increased demand will last until the very end of December. It is important for brands to use a variety of traffic channels during this hot period and not to forget about the technical stability of both the site itself and the mobile sales channel.