2014 Black Friday & Cyber Monday E-Commerce Report: Online Orders Up 15.7% Over Last Year

According to the National Retail Federation, in-store sales for the holiday weekend proved disappointing, but that doesn’t appear to be the case online.

Predictive analytics platform Custora reports ecommerce revenue for Black Friday through Cyber Monday was up 15.4 percent – and orders up 15.7 percent – over last year, with email marketing driving a majority of the weekend’s ecommerce transactions.

Based on data curated from its online dashboard tracking more than 100 US online retailers, 100 million online shoppers, and over $40 billion in transaction revenue, Custora said Black Friday online sales were up 20.6 percent over last year, followed by record-setting numbers on Cyber Monday.

[pullquote]E-commerce revenue was up 15.4% on Cyber Monday 2014 compared to Cyber Monday 2013, making it the biggest day in US online shopping history — easily shattering the previous record set just three days ago, on Black Friday.[/pullquote]

When analyzing the primary drivers of the holiday weekend’s ecommerce activity, Custora found email marketing generated 27.3 percent of online orders for Black Friday and 23.9 percent on Cyber Monday.

Google search also helped drive this weekend’s ecommerce transactions, with free search accounting for 18 percent of orders on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and paid search driving 18.5 percent on Black Friday and 16 percent on Cyber Monday.

Overall for the weekend, Custora says email marketing generated 23.1 percent of online orders, free search 19.4 percent, and paid search 17 percent.

With only 1.7 percent of this weekend’s ecommerce orders tied to social, Custora claims Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest played a barely noticeable role during the Black Friday-Cyber Monday online shopping period.

Custora also looked at mobile’s influence on the weekend’s ecommerce data and found 30.3% of online orders for Black Friday happened on a mobile device.

For Cyber Monday, mobile accounted for 21.9 percent of online orders, and 26.4 percent over the course of the weekend. “That’s a significant jump from only 15.9% on Cyber Monday 2013,” reported Custora.

Custora split its mobile data between Apple and Android devices, with Apple accounting for the largest share of ecommerce transactions.

[blockquote]The vast majority of mobile shopping happened on Apple devices over the weekend – 78%, while only 21.6% happened on Android devices.[/blockquote]

Even though more orders happened on an Apple device, Custora says Android’s share is up 15.4 percent over last year, while Apple’s has dropped more than five percent.