Parcel firms across Europe and other parts of the world are working at full capacity this week to deliver hundreds of millions of items generated by record-breaking Black Friday and Cyber Monday online sales, including a dramatic 30% surge in France.
Major delivery operators have invested in hiring temporary staff and renting more trucks and vans, and are using sorting capacity fully to cope with the surge in volumes resulting from intensive online shopping by consumers over the last few days.
The Black Friday – Cyber Monday period of high discounts and special offers seems certain to have generated double-digit online sales growth for many retailers compared to last year and thus once again record volumes of orders for delivery.
Amazon today announced some limited sales figures for the ‘long weekend’ stretching from Thanksgiving Day last Thursday (a US public holiday) and Black Friday to Cyber Monday yesterday but did not disclose total sales volumes or revenues.
The e-commerce giant said it had seen its best-ever holiday shopping weekend for sales of devices, including “millions” of Amazon devices such as ‘Echo Dot’ and ‘Amazon Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote’, which were “the best-selling products from any manufacturer in any category across all of Amazon.com”. However, the company was affected in Germany and Italy by protests by several hundred workers at several locations in ongoing disputes over pay and working conditions.
In Europe, online shoppers in Britain, Germany, France and elsewhere rushed to their laptops and smartphones to snap up some of the countless bargains offered by retailers in their own countries or abroad.
Fashion specialist Zalando said it took more than one million online orders last Friday and won 100,000 new customers. Delphine Mousseau, Vice Presidents Markets, said: “The very good performance seen this Black Friday illustrates the strong relationship Zalando has built with its customers. This happened over time, through a relentless effort to meet specific local needs in each individual market."
In the UK, e-commerce association IMRG said today that online retail spending increased by 11.7% to £1.39 billion on Black Friday, according to its data. Most buying was done from a smartphone (39%) rather than a laptop or tablet.
The 11.7% growth for online retail sales beat the original forecast of a 9% increase and was achieved in spite of a number of factors that could have exerted a negative influence on the day’s growth, IMRG pointed out. These included this year’s relatively early date (November 24), rival sales offers in other sectors than retail, and – most importantly – the fact that many retailers started offering ‘Black Friday discounts’ well ahead of the day itself, thus extending the peak activity over a longer period.
Moreover, some experts predicted that yesterday’s Cyber Monday sales could even prove bigger than Black Friday this year, and generate more records for the overall four-day online shopping period.
Major British omnichannel retailer Argos already released some limited figures last Friday, including over two million website visits in the first four hours. More than 80% of customers shopped from a mobile device, with electronics products the clear best-sellers, and orders for Fast Track Collections from stores rose by more than 50%. CEO John Rogers commented: “Fast Track Collection is proving popular and we have 10,000 extra colleagues in our stores today to help people when they come in to collect their orders.”
In France, Black Friday sales surged by more than 30% compared to last year, led by fashion and high-tech consumer electronics, smashing forecasts of 14% growth, retail news portal LSA reported. The average order value rose to €118 from €112 last year.
Market leader Amazon France announced a “historic day” with Black Friday sales rising by more than 40% to over two million orders, making November 24 its busiest-ever day. The second-largest online retailer Cdiscount increased Black Friday sales by 80% to €43 million this year. Rival marketplace PriceMinister, owned by Japanese e-commerce group Rakuten, said it had its biggest-ever sales day, with revenues up by 300% and average transaction value 20% higher than last year.
E-commerce is having a strong year in France in general. According to e-commerce association Fevad, online retail sales grew by 16% to €19.8 billion in the July – September quarter, with the number of transactions increasing by just over 20% to more than 300 million. It predicts sales growth of 14% to more than €80 billion for the year as a whole, including a 13% increase to €15.8 billion in November and December alone.
In Germany, retailers expected additional sales of about €1.7 billion over the Black Friday – Cyber Monday period, according to a survey by retail association HDE ahead of the event. Official sales figures are not yet available.
