Sales during Global online Cyber Week (21 November to 27 November) totaled $298-billion, up 6% year on year (YoY) from $281-billion in 2022. Growth was driven primarily by order volume, rather than inflation, signalling increased consumer demand for the first time in over five quarters.
Data gleaned from over 1,5-billion shoppers on the Salesforce Customer 360 platform reveal the following:
* Online sales and traffic spiked on Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Digital traffic across Cyber Week increased 5% YoY and attractive discount rates led to surprisingly strong sales growth on the two biggest online shopping days of the year. For Black Friday online sales increased 8% globally and 8% in Europe YoY; for Cyber Monday, online sales increased 5% globally and 10% in Europe YoY.
* AI wins over shoppers: AI influenced $51-billion in online sales in areas including targeted offers, product recommendations, and generative AI-powered chat services.
* Consumers shopped mostly on mobile: Mobile phones accounted for a record-breaking 80% of Cyber Week ecommerce traffic, up from 76% in 2022. Given this, social traffic on mobile was a critical acquisition channel – representing 10% of all referrals to retailer websites.
* Discounts rose to meet pent-up demand: After lacklustre deals earlier in the holiday season, discount rates rose to 27% globally on average throughout Cyber Week — representing the best deals of the holiday season. Verticals with the highest global discount rates were Makeup (38%), General Apparel (33%), Skincare (33%) and Active Apparel (32%).
* More transparent discounts led to fewer returns: After a high rate of returns during last Cyber Week – where consumers return purchases to buy them back at lower prices – return rates fell back to normal levels (5%) for the week.