It’s almost Christmas and whether you’re shopping for yourself of
shopping for others, packages from Cyber 5 week orders and beyond are rolling in. How is the holiday shopping season going? Here we’ll take an opportunity to analyze data from True Fit’s
Fashion Genome to review how holiday shopping has gone, with a week left.
Cyber 5 vs. November Overall shows consumers shopped even earlier
During an analysis of the
2019 holiday season, we reported that consumers in the UK and throughout Europe began holiday shopping earlier in the season than the previous year, with a first spike in traffic coming November 1
st, and steady traffic growth beginning in mid-November.
During the 2020 holiday shopping season, we see global traffic trend upwards well before mid-November;
6 out of the 8 weeks leading up to Cyber 5 showed significant traffic growth YoY, and 7 out of the 8 weeks leading up to Cyber 5 showed an increase in total number of orders YoY.
Looking at the total number of orders, or order volume, during the whole month of November we see it grew slightly YoY, by .25%. In terms of order volume during
Cyber 5, we see a -7% decline YoY. With order volume during Cyber 5 down YoY, and the weeks leading up to Cyber 5 up YoY (the second week of November saw the largest growth in order volume, up 52% YoY), this indicates that consumers took to holiday shopping even earlier this year, and Cyber 5 was not as strong of an orders anchor for retailers and consumers as it traditionally is.
Zooming in on Cyber 5, the Saturday during the time period returned the largest traffic growth, up 26% YoY. Traffic during Cyber 5, compared to the beginning of November, grew exponentially, +158% in the UK, +389% throughout Europe, and +453% since the beginning of November in the US.
Web traffic peaks during nighttime
Historically we’ve seen Cyber 5 web traffic peak around 9PM, and this year we see geographical peaks at opposite ends of Cyber 5. European web traffic peaked at 9:38 PM CET on Black Friday, and UK web traffic peaked the same day at 8:25 PM GMT. With several surges and dips in between, US traffic did not peak until Cyber Monday, at 9:14 PM EST.
What does this mean for retailers?
We've seen many retailers, such as Nisolo and Moosejaw, pivot their strategies this year, and the holiday season is not different. Those who made changes to support a shift in consumer behavior - the expectation the consumers would shop earlier this holiday season - and made adjustments to their strategy will likely fare better than those who relied on Cyber 5 to meet revenue targets. Retailers who also started promotions earlier in November are more likely to see positive results during the holiday season. Doing so enabled them to connect emotionally with shoppers who chose to get into the holiday spirit earlier this year, as well as connected logically, as shoppers may have anticipated delivery delays due to a surge in orders that rely on the mail system.
How does your experience compare with the analysis from the Fashion Genome? Do you want to leverage shopper data beyond your brand to help drive better business decisions in 2021?
Get in touch, we'll talk about what we can do for you.