App Commerce Peak Trading Report
Over the past 3 years we’ve been closely monitoring peak trading across our platform as app commerce continues to grow. Ahead of the peak trading season this year, and as the first instalment in a series of content about preparing for the peak trading season – we’re sharing our expertise with you based on our findings from last holiday season, with the aim to provide some best practice on how you can best prepare for peak.
We’ve noticed the way we shop is constantly evolving and peak trading is no exception. Sales expanded from Cyber Weekend to Cyber Week in 2015 and 2016, and widened even further to form Cyber Fortnight in 2017, with some calling for the whole month of November to be dubbed ‘Black month’. As the frenzy of Black Friday grows, it’s important to know how shoppers are behaving and what shifts in shopping behaviour can mean for retailers.
In our comprehensive analysis across the Poq platform, we have examined; desktop, mobile websites and both Android and iOS apps with a focus on Q4 2017, together with data from the previous two years for retrospective comparison. We examined over 30m sessions across Q4 2017 and over 6.5m in cyber fortnight alone.
November overtook December as the biggest month of the year
- Q4 accounted for a third of total app revenue in 2017, and November app revenues grew 134% year-over-year
Growing engagement led to an app spending spike
- Shoppers spent on average 3.6x more in shopping apps than mobile websites
- App downloads on Black Friday were 2.6x the average day in 2017
Big shopping days drove a step change in app audience
- The volume of downloads and active app users spiked in Q4 and plateaued at this higher level, proving the lasting impact of peak trading and contribution of the app channel
- In 2017 clients on the Poq platform saw apps’ contribution to online and mobile revenue double compared to 2016. On average app revenue share mobile grew 2.2x to account for 22% of total mobile revenue on Black Friday
