With existing shoppers increasing their spending and more new shoppers joining the online events each year, sales events are an important part of a retailer's year. However, with some COVID related supply chain challenges impacting stock levels, we saw some online retailers choose not to participate in the sales this year. Others, keen not to miss out on the opportunity, offered deals on items they don't have in stock yet, with a promise to deliver before Christmas.
Singles Day
Singles Day is the largest sales event in the world but still lagging well behind Black Friday and Cyber Monday here in New Zealand. Singles Day kicks off the ‘peak period’ that goes all the way through Christmas and Boxing Day. This year we saw sales growth start earlier with big global players, like Alibaba, running their Singles Day promotions for two weeks leading up to 11/11.
$23.6m2020 spend 11/11 |
$21m2019 spend 11/11 |
11%Growth in spend |
Another interesting trend is that Singles Day is becoming more than a one day event, with over $20m in sales for each of the days either side of Singles Day.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Similar to the global experience, New Zealand sales started earlier with a number of big players running pre-Black Friday sales earlier in the week to avoid the competitive clutter of the day.
$34m2020 Black Friday spend |
$28m2019 Black Friday spend |
22%Black Friday |
$33m2020 Cyber Monday |
$25m2019 Cyber Monday |
32%Cyber Monday |
Over the four shopping days from Black Friday to Cyber Monday we saw online spend of $115m, up 30% from $88m on the same four days last year.
