It is officially the holiday season, and there is no better way to ring in the festivities than with Cyber Week. Despite the effects of the ongoing pandemic, this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday have seen a record-breaking influx of sales. Retailers were met with the challenge of creating a smooth shopping experience for buyers that would align with CDC safety guidelines and procedures. To overcome this challenge, businesses have restricted their in-store hours and moved the majority of their holiday deals online to limit traffic. According to Adobe Analytics, consumers spent $9 billion online, a nearly 22% increase over the $7.4 billion in 2019 online Black Friday sales.
Prior to Cyber Week, retailers have already begun to become accustomed to transitioning their products on E-Commerce sites and other social media platforms like Instagram. According to e-commerce platform Shopify, Black Friday sales among 1 million independent and direct-to-consumer businesses were $2.4 billion globally, a 75% increase in sales from Black Friday 2019. With the recent shopping feature added to Instagram, brands have jumped on the opportunity to easily incorporate celebrities and influencers into their products. An example of this is TikTok creator Ronnie partnering with NBA2k by promoting their contest with a video clip which has currently reached over 480K views on the app.
It is no doubt that celebrities and influencers have a large amount of influence when their name is attached to a product. It is common to see public figures having their own line of merchandise and products for followers to purchase. Content Creators like Rhett & Link, Jeffree Star, and Tana Mongeau are notorious for having products of their own and were not shy in participating in the sales for Cyber Week with sales ranging from 30% to 70% off their product lines. Having such large followings across multiple social media platforms, capitalizing on their influence and the holiday deals is a great way to promote sales within their merchandise. This also leads to an increase in engagement and viewership with their followers.
The transition of holiday shopping to online and E-Commerce sites raises questions and concerns about the future of in-store shopping. From the variety of brands to shop from to the accessibility of online deals, it will be interesting to see how these trends continue to transfer over post pandemic and into the next holiday season. The major success of this year’s Cyber Week can be attributed to the rise of E-Commerce. As online shopping platforms continue to grow, it is predicted that brands will only increase their sales, and the digital world will intertwine more and more.