Predicting what will happen on Black Friday / Cyber Monday 2022 is no easy task. There are a lot of things going on in the world that could make major impacts on how much shopping is done and what products are trending. What we can do is reflect on what happened in 2021 and take cues from that data.
What Happened on Black Friday / Cyber Monday in 2021
2021 was an interesting year. As the world started to shift from pandemic mode, so did shopping habits. In 2020 purchases of home goods were up. However, in 2021 shopping for fashion blew home goods out of the water. This is no exaggeration either. Clothing searches in 2021 experienced a 288% increase over 2020, while shoes saw a 200% increase. Housewares and decor were down by 16%. It was obvious from these results that shoppers were ready to move on from COVID – and from their loungewear – and get back out in the world. The top clothing searches were for comfortable, yet stylish clothing items. This tells us people want to remain cozy – they just want to look good at the same time.
The top ten clothing searches of 2021 included:
- Petite
- Dress
- Sweater
- Jacket
- Leg (we assume they mean “legging”)
- Pant(s)
- Bodysuit
- Sock (just one?)
- Jumpsuit
- Sweater Dress
There is also some comfort in knowing that some things never change. In 2021, searches for Disney and Star Wars related products topped the charts, just as they have for several years running.
Is your ecommerce store optimized for mobile? Better do a quick site audit and make sure, cause that’s definitely where shoppers are. With almost 60% of the search traffic coming from mobile, this platform remains king. Desktop brought in 38% of traffic, and tablets rounded it out at 3%.
It’s no surprise that the largest populated state put up some big numbers. California stayed golden bringing in 9% of all search traffic. What is a surprise is that Virginia came in a close second with 8% of search traffic. Apparently Virginia is for lovers of shopping. So get your geo-merchandising up and running, because what they’re buying in VA is probably different than what they’re buying in CA, but they’re all out there looking.
An interesting development over Cyber Weekend 2021 was the use of emoji’s in searches. Over 1,000 searches across Searchspring were performed by using the pants emoji (Yes, this one >👖). It’s not clear how these searches did, but the fact that it happened is really something else.
Cyber Five Weekend 2021 was five days of non-stop shopping. Black Friday has edged out Cyber Monday as the biggest online shopping day, but Cyber Monday was still incredibly close. The next biggest day was small business Saturday, closely followed by Thanksgiving Day and the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
What Will Happen in 2022?
Your guess is as good as our as to what will happen this year. There are simply too many unusual factors to guess. For Halloween 2022, we saw an increase of nearly 200% on searches for the word Halloween. This included costumes, decor, and candy. If people were spending on Halloween, does that mean they’ll continue to spend through the holidays? Or will things like inflation, elections, and layoffs have them keeping a close eye on their pocketbooks?
What we do know for sure is that you still must prepare. Regardless of how much people spend, there will still be increased traffic to your site. Make sure your site is merchandised properly, is performing correctly on mobile, and that it can handle the influx of traffic.
Below are some things that must be done before Black Friday:
- Shop Your Own Site / Do a Site Audit
- Check-in With Vendor About Traffic Spikes and Inventory
- Check-in With Internal Teams – COMMUNICATE Plans
- Review FAQ, About Us, and Contact Pages on Your Site
You also must make your post-Black Friday plans. Consider how to turn new shoppers to your site over Cyber 5 Weekend into repeat buyers and how you’ll use reporting to optimize your site.
