BigCommerce has reported its customers experienced another year of increased Cyber Week sales. The company reveals what has been another successful start to the holiday shopping season for the retail industry. From Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, BigCommerce suggests there was a marked increase of 10% in gross merchandise value (GMV) for BigCommerce merchants compared to the same period in 2022.
Shoppers were more active this year, too, with total orders up 7%. They also spent more, reflected by a 3% increase in average order value (AOV), compared to Cyber Week 2022. Although this figure is not adjusted for inflation. Overall US eCommerce sales for the period were up 7.8% over 2022, according to Adobe Analytics. Global eCommerce sales were up 6% over the five-day period, according to Salesforce.
“Cyber Week closed with a 12% spike in year-over-year sales on Cyber Monday. Signalling consumers’ urgency to capitalize on deep discounts before they were gone,” said Brent Bellm, CEO at BigCommerce. “Even with the holiday shopping season and retailer promotions starting earlier, these five days remain critical to retailers’ success. The 12% increase on Thanksgiving Day likely reflects that cost conscious consumers did their homework in advance. Earmarking the exact items they want and then waiting for retailers to layer on early deals before pulling the trigger.”
BigCommerce says merchants on the company’s enterprise plans experienced even higher GMV and order growth over 2022.
BigCommerce Cyber Week highlights
- Mobile orders accounted for 38% of all Cyber Week orders, a slight increase from last year. Notably, however, the percentage of sales on mobile devices increased by a more substantial 13% in 2023.
- Top-performing categories by GMV increase were Apparel & Accessories (+22%), Food & Beverage (+20%) and Vehicles & Parts (+20%).
- Cyber Week was a big hit in EMEA, where GMV rose 20% on a 10% increase in total orders.
- The biggest sales volumes occurred on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Black Friday GMV was up 8% and Cyber Monday GMV was up 12% over 2022. Total orders on Cyber Monday were up 10% over last year.
- Shoppers were most active from 2-3pm on Cyber Monday and from 10-11am on Black Friday.
- Amazon was the standout among marketplaces with highest GMV and most orders for BigCommerce merchants. This was followed in GMV by eBay and Walmart.
“It’s gratifying to see BigCommerce customers perform well and benefit from our platform achieving 100% uptime for the tenth year in a row,” Bellm said. “Our open, simplified approach to enterprise eCommerce delivers the competitive advantage brands and retailers need to succeed around the world and across multiple sales channels.”
Early holiday shopping results in October pointed to consumer resilience with a 5.9% year-over-year increase in online spending reported by Adobe Analytics. Similarly, BigCommerce customers saw positive numbers when it came to online orders, GMV and AOV for the month of October versus the previous year.
Methodology
BigCommerce’s Cyber Week data is based on a comparison of year-over-year total platform sales metrics and represents the applicable period-on-period change that occurred Nov. 24-28, 2022, and Nov. 23-27, 2023. It contains information from thousands of small, mid-sized and enterprise retailers selling on the BigCommerce platform. Unless otherwise noted, the data is global.
Enterprise Times: What this means for business
The 2023 holiday season was going to be different from the last several years. Many experts such as NRF were predicting record spending for the holiday season at large. Other forecasts indicate slower growth rates between 3% and 4% in a return to pre-pandemic levels.
Consumer behaviours are shifting almost daily, and some retailers launced holiday sales earlier every year. As a result, the question became a matter of when would consumers do the bulk of their shopping? Many analysts have questioned whether Cyber Week would still reign supreme. From Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, BigCommerce reported 10% in sales for BigCommerce customers compared to Cyber Week 2022. Additionally, shoppers were more active this year with a 7% increase in total Cyber Week orders, bolstered by a 3% increase in average order value (AOV). This is in line with the data reported from both Salesforce and Adobe.
Looking closer at the daily shopping activity, BigCommerce customers started Cyber Week off in a sales dash. The company saw a 12% increase in YoY sales on Thanksgiving Day. Furthermore, an upward trend continued through the holiday weekend with steady increases in GMV, AOV, and orders. So the emphatic answer appears to be Cyber Week will continue to reign supreme in the holiday season. It has become securely lodged in the psychological calendar of today’s consumers.
BMW UK launches B2C Store for BMW and MINI Parts on BigCommerce
