What does Cyber 5 indicate for the holiday season?
Dec 4, 2023
Summary:
- Cyber 5 revealed that early holiday promotions spread out shopper activity, making every touchpoint in the digital experience critical as customers delayed final purchases until Cyber Monday.
- Traffic dipped year over year, but conversion rates rose, especially on Cyber Monday, showing that shoppers filled carts over several days before committing to buy.
- Customers made more frequent, smaller purchases, with higher conversion rates but significantly lower average order values, signaling a focus on grabbing the best deal in the moment.
- Mobile played a central role in Cyber 5, with strong gains in conversion and dominant browsing share, yet lower average order values compared to desktop.
- Investing in mobile apps and deeper visibility into mobile customer journeys presents a major opportunity to boost holiday revenue.
Cyber 5 is not just a shopping frenzy; it’s a treasure trove of insights that unveils how customer behavior has evolved for the holiday season and what to expect in 2024. So, what are the big takeaways from Cyber 5 in 2024? Let’s dive into the data, unraveling insights that can make or break your holiday season.
Let’s take a look at 3 learnings.
1. With promotions, timing is everything.
With early holiday sales, traffic rates declined across November and into Cyber 5. Going into Thanksgiving week:
- Traffic decreased by 10% year-over-year (YoY), then 5% for Cyber 5.
This year, with more time for consumers to browse deals, their views weren’t concentrated on a specific day or time. This meant that every moment of the digital experience needed to be right to ensure customers came back to make that final purchase. Our data showed:
- Black Friday saw only a 2% increase in conversion rates YoY, while Cyber Monday saw a 19% increase.
This indicates that more people took the time to fill their carts over the holiday week but wouldn’t commit to a purchase until Cyber Monday.
2. Customers will make multiple purchases to find the best value.
This Cyber 5 also saw major shifts in how frequently customers buy and how much they spend each time.
- Conversion rates were up for Cyber 5, with a 10% increase YoY for the week.
- However, average order values dropped 30% on average for Thanksgiving week and Cyber Monday.
Unlike 2022, where consumers planned purchases to fit budgets, major shifts in spending could show that consumers are back to sporadic and frequent purchases based on the best deals. As inflation eases and more deals are available, people are actually making more purchases “in the moment,” focusing on where to find the best deal.
3. Mobile is key to growing Cyber 5 sales.
While this has been forecasted, our data confirmed the importance of mobile this year:
- Mobile conversion rates increased 14% YoY for November, almost 10% YoY for Cyber 5.
- Despite this, daily average order values on mobile were 35% lower than desktop.
- Mobile web constituted 85% of mobile browsing traffic during Thanksgiving week and Black Friday.
- Daily average order value for mobile web was 75% higher than mobile apps.
- Mobile apps showed more than 2X conversion rates on average for both Android and iOS.
The moral of this story? Maximizing investments in mobile apps, including expanded visibility into customer journeys, could drastically improve holiday revenues.
Want to sleigh your holiday season strategy? Browse the Quantum Metric demo library to learn how the platform can empower your team to turn insights into action (we recommend starting with our retail demo for Cyber 5 alignment).