This month in the world of app commerce – November: Black Friday Predictions

It’s officially started, Black Friday is in full swing. We saw a bumper year for sales and the domination of mcommerce last year. So let’s take a look into the crystal ball at what was predicted for this year.

Predictions for Black Friday

Cyber weekend to take more money than ever before

According to the National Retail Federation, Cyber Monday alone is expected to draw 75 million online shoppers, with 164 million people expected to shop over the entire Thanksgiving weekend.

More shoppers turn to mobile

It’s estimated that 73% of US consumers plan to shop instore this holiday season whilst 42% plan to shop on their smartphones.

According to Salesforce, of the 18-44 year old consumers who head to the stores over the Thanksgiving weekend, about 83% will be using their phones at the same time, but how much of Cyber Weekend’s sales will be from mobile:

• Salesforce anticipates that mobile will account for 68% of sales throughout November (a 19% YoY growth) and for the first time more shoppers will make purchases on mobile (46%) than desktop (44%) or tablet (9%).
• Deloitte predicts that 73% of consumers plan to shop online on Cyber Monday which will account for nearly half (47%) of all online shopping.
• Forrester believes that 53% of online transactions in Europe will be via mobile.

Gen Z and millennials pave the way

Last year we saw a spike in visits to our clients’ apps in the first hour of the day on Black Friday and we know that Millennials and Gen Z have gone a long way to drive and shape the way we shop online.

This Black Friday Shopkick predict that 16% of Gen Z are willing to stay up all night to get the best deals, and we reckon a large portion of these would use the convenience of mobile to do so. Similarly, Citi Retail Services found that 55% of millennials and 48% of Gen Xers said they intended to conduct their holiday shopping on mobile.

Find out how retail apps performed on our platform last year including which hours of Black Friday saw the most app visits.

Get the 2017 Peak Trading Report

Beyond 2018

The future of mcommerce

Mcommerce currently accounts for 38% of ecommerce sales and by 2023, mcommerce is expected to dominate ecommerce globally according to WorldPay, and in the UK the ecommerce market is set to grow by 40% by 2023. A recent study found that mcommerce now accounts for 30% of total ecommerce and mcommerce is growing at 300% faster than traditional ecommerce. As mcommerce eats into the ecommerce pie, we’re seeing app commerce continue to grow in it’s contribution to sales too.

Reported by Samantha Rigg