Aftermath Of Black Friday 2020 – Report
With many retailers in America running pre Black Friday events starting in October and imposing COVID-19 related guidelines for shoppers, the negative ramifications on retail sales during Black Friday 2020 were imminent.
CNBC estimates that in-store traffic was down by 52% during Black Friday this year. Based on a recent holiday shopping survey we ran in October, our data showed that retail traffic during this year’s holiday shopping season was expected to be down by 31% overall.
The underlying theme of this year’s Black Friday was obvious – significantly more Americans will shop online than in-store and online sale numbers will break another record ($9 billion in fact according to Adobe Analytics). Thus, this study’s purpose is to outline to what extent this theme was true and how American consumers approached shopping on Black Friday 2020.
We surveyed 1060 US consumers to gather the data and outlined the key findings below. A further breakdown of the data can be found after the key findings section along with the methodology and demographics at the end. You can skip to each section by clicking on one of the headings below.
KEY FINDINGS
Despite Black Friday 2020 setting another sales record at $9.03 billion (Source), average individual spending online during Black Friday 2020 has gone down compared to 2019. This can be attributed to more people shopping online due to COVID-19 but spending less on average as a result of large retailers (i.e., Walmart) running numerous Black Friday type sales throughout October and November.
WHERE CONSUMERS SHOPPED ON BLACK FRIDAY 2020
The consensus for Black Friday 2020’s increased online and decreased in-store shopping preference was supported by the data we discovered in our survey. 80.2% of consumers indicated that they shopped ‘Online’ while 24.5% indicated that they shopped ‘In-Store’ during Black Friday.
The vast majority of consumers did not do any shopping in-store on Black Friday and cited COVID-19 as the main reason why along with a few others:
66.3% of consumers that did not shop in-store on Black Friday cited ‘COVID-19’ as the main reason why.
11.2% of consumers that did not shop in-store on Black Friday cited ‘Crowds’ as the main reason why.
8.9% of consumers that did not shop in-store on Black Friday cited ‘Money’ as the main reason why.
Those who shopped online during Black Friday spent the majority of the their budgets at Amazon (67.1%), Best Buy (5.3%) and Kohl’s (4.7%) while those who shopped in-store did the majority of their spending at Walmart (26.9%), Target (15.4%) and Apple (11.5%).
These findings align with the data we uncovered in our COVID-19 & 2020 Holiday Shopping Season – Study where most consumers (86.4%) anticipated to spend most of their online holiday budgets at Amazon. However, Walmart did beat out Target in terms of in-store spending on Black Friday despite Target being preferred by 38.8% of consumers as the retailer where they anticipated to spend majority of their in-store holiday budgets.
HOW MUCH CONSUMERS SPENT ON BLACK FRIDAY 2020
Despite Black Friday 2020 setting another record for online sales on a Black Friday at $8.9 billion which represents a 21.6% increase from 2019 according to TechCrunch, the average spent per person online has actually declined by 14.5% in 2020 compared to 2019. According to our data average in-store spent per person has only declined by about 2.5%.
Online
On average, consumers who shopped online spent $259 on Black Friday.
$259 average spent per person on Black Friday 2020 represents a 14.5% decrease compared to the amount consumers spent online on Black Friday 2019.
In-store
On average, consumers who shopped in-store spent $163 on Black Friday.
$163 average spent per person on Black Friday 2020 represents a 2.5% decrease compared to the amount consumers spent in-store on Black Friday 2019.
What’s interesting about this data is that despite an increase in the number of consumers that shopped online on Black Friday this year, the average spent per person has actually gone down. These decreases in average spent were surprising but warranted based on the number of sales retailers like Walmart ran prior to Black Friday.
The decrease in expenditure was also uncovered when we asked consumers how much they spent on gifts this Black Friday (online and in-store) and how the amount compares to Black Friday 2019. Here is what we found:
Gifts (online & in-store)
On average, consumers spent $154 on gifts on Black Friday 2020.
$154 average spent per person on gifts on Black Friday 2020 represents a 25.2% decrease compared to the amount consumers spent on gifts during Black Friday 2019.
An overwhelming majority of consumers (83%) also indicated that they plan to do more shopping before Christmas and about 70.5% plan to spend their remaining budgets on gifts. Out of those who planned to do more shopping before Christmas, 51% said they will shop online and in-store, 38.8% said they will shop online only and another 10.2% said they will shop in-store only.
MILLENNIALS ON BLACK FRIDAY 2020
More millennials shopped online and in-store during Black Friday than any other age group according to our data. 87.1% of millennials shopped online while 32.3% shopped in-store on Black Friday.
Overwhelming majority of millennials (74.1%) spent most of their online budgets at Amazon while Macy’s, Kohls and Apple were also popular online destinations. In-store, millennials preferred to shop at Walmart (28.3%) and Target (20.9%).
Online
74.1% of millennials who shopped online during Black Friday, spent majority of their budgets at Amazon.
In-Store
28.3% of millennials who shopped in-store during Black Friday, spent majority of their budgets at Walmart.
According to our survey data, millennials exhibited similar concerns with in-store shopping on Black Friday and also showcased a decline in online spending compared to 2019. Millennials were slightly less giving than other age groups with only 27.4% spending majority of their budgets on ‘Gifts’. They were more interested in purchasing electronics (19.4%) than other age groups.
METHODOLOGY & DEMOGRAPHICS
For the purpose of this study, we surveyed 1060 US consumers to find out how they approached Black Friday 2020, where they shopped, how much they spent and what they bought. The survey was conducted through SurveyMonkey services.
The demographic composition of the 1060 individuals surveyed is as follows.
Age
Income
