Amidst the shadows of the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, projections painted a subdued picture for spending during the UK Black Friday sales. GlobalData’s analysis, in collaboration with Vouchercodes, predicted a mere 0.4% rise in sales, reaching £8.7bn from Black Friday to Cyber Monday.
However, as the high street weathered challenges, online spending defied expectations. According to Adobe Analytics, the Cyber weekend (Black Friday to Cyber Monday) witnessed a robust 5.1% surge in sales compared to 2022, soaring to £3.45bn. In the wake of these dynamics, Engage3 delves into Amazon’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, unraveling the tailored strategies employed to seize a significant share of the online sales growth
Key Takeaways
- Amazon UK had 17.7% fewer deals on Cyber Monday than Black Friday, but the average depth of discount was essentially the same (-0.07%).
- Amazon UK 1P items were far more listed than 3P sellers making up 59.4% on Black Friday and 65.9% on Cyber Monday.
- The overlap in UK deals on Cyber Monday from Black Friday was a massive 83.5%, greater than the 66.5% on Amazon in the US
Cyber Monday saw much greater sales growth than Black Friday, up 7.4% y-o-y versus 4.1% for Black Friday, but Black Friday remained the bigger online spending day. Amazon grabbed 9% of Black Friday spending last year (Kantar), far ahead of its rivals, here’s the difference in its approach to deals on these crucial days.
Amazon had 17.7% fewer deals on Cyber Monday than Black Friday
Engage3 can reveal that Amazon promoted 17.7% fewer deals on Cyber Monday than Black Friday across 7 major categories.
Even though parents may still be looking for presents for their children, it was the Toys & Games category that saw the greatest fall in the number of deals between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, down 28.7%. Cyber Monday also has traditionally been associated with deals on Electronics and Technology products, but this category also saw a significant decrease in deals, down 22.0% from Black Friday. The Beauty category had the lowest drop off in deals at 11.9%.
Average depth of cut barely changed between Cyber Monday from Black Friday
Amazon’s average depth of discount on Cyber Monday was almost the same as on Black Friday, it was just 0.07% lower at 24.37%. The Grocery category had the greatest fall in average depth of cut falling 0.6% to 19.7%, the lowest of all categories. The Electronics and Photo category also had a fall in average depth of cut to 24.3% (-0.3%).
As well as having the lowest fall in deals, the Beauty category had the greatest average depth of cut at 28.4%, up 0.1% from Black Friday.
Amazon UK (1P) deals were far more prevalent on Cyber Monday and noticeably greater than Amazon USA
On Black Friday an average of 59.4% of deals were sold by Amazon (1P) and grew significantly on Cyber Monday to 65.9%. This was also far greater than Amazon US, where 1P accounted for 58.8% of all deals on Cyber Monday
On Amazon UK, the Electronic & Photo category had by far the greatest proportion of deals from 3P sellers reaching 61.4% and like all the other categories had an increase in the proportion of 1P deals from Black Friday. The Health & Personal Care saw the greatest shift, with 1P accounting for 58.7% of deals on Black Friday but rose to 69.1% on Cyber Monday.
Bosch was the most listed DIY brand, on the first page of deals, on Black Friday as it was on Amazon.com
Looking at the brands that occupied the most visible first page of deals we see that Bosch had the greatest number of deals in the DIY & Tools category, as it did in the US, with 6.3% of deals in the category. Rubie’s had a similar level of deals in the Toys & Games category with 6.7%, far ahead of its nearest rival Ravensburger (2.5%).
It was much closer in the Electronics & Photo category where UGREEN led the way, it had 3.7% of deals on the first page largely with its range of adapters and cables. Similarly, it was followed by AmazonBasics and its adapters and cables and Spigen with its range of mobile phone cases.
More than 83% of deals on Cyber Monday were also listed on Black Friday
On Cyber Monday, 83.5% of product deals were also listed on Black Friday, far greater than the 66.5% we saw on Amazon US. The Grocery had the greatest overlap with 91.7% of Cyber Monday deals featuring on Black Friday just ahead of the Beauty category (91.2%). Like Amazon in the US, Toys & Games had the least overlap with 78.8% of Cyber Monday Toy deals also on Black Friday.
Nutravita, BG Electrical and Samsung had large swings in the number of deals listed on Cyber Monday
An average of 90% of the most-listed brands deals on Cyber Monday were also listed on Black Friday, however, there were brands that saw a large change in the number of deals between the days. Nutravita more than doubled its number of deals on Cyber Monday to 148 from 61 on Black Friday. However, two-thirds of this increase was due to its products being listed multiple times on the deal page.
Similarly, Beauty brand Trish McEvoy and Apple had an increase in the number of deals on Cyber Monday of 74.6% and 16.9% respectively, but this was new product deals being listed.
Contrarily the number of Samsung deals more than halved on Cyber Monday to 112, it was mostly TV’s and accessories for its Galaxy phones and fitness trackers that were no longer deals. BG Electrical also saw a 46.8% fall in the number of deals, however, this was because on Black Friday its deals were listed multiple times, on different pages of the DIY & Tools deal page. On Cyber Monday, many of these products were only listed once, in fact more that 90% of the product deals it had on Black Friday were also on Cyber Monday.
Amazon UK’s approach to the Cyber weekend was more simplistic than Amazon US
Now the Cyber weekend is over we can see that there was a large amount of consistency in deals offered in the UK between Black Friday and Cyber Monday with not as much variability in the number of deals, average depth of cut and overall overlap of deals compared to US. Given that Amazon (1P) represented more deals in the UK and the US, this variation appears to be due to a lesser proportion of 3P sellers.
Despite Black Friday’s decade-long presence in the UK, it lacks the fervor and enthusiasm associated with its American counterpart. Amazon’s approach of less variability simplified the shopping experience for shoppers, offering some respite to consumers navigating ongoing cost-of-living concerns and the seemingly endless Christmas shopping period.
Click here to request more insight into your category over the Cyber weekend or to find out how Engage3 helps retailers and brands improve their pricing performance and compete more profitably through data science & analytics. Also stay tuned to our blogs and LinkedIn as we’ll be publishing more insights into the Cyber weekend from other retailers.
