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Blog Post: Black Friday 2023: 5 Trends That Shaped This Cyber Weekend

Discover this year's top five Cyber Weekend trends to keep a pulse on how consumers are shopping this holiday season.

Updated on August 8, 2024

With the frenzy of Black Friday and Cyber Monday settled down, we checked in on Criteo’s exclusive commerce dataset from 18,000 ecommerce players across 100 countries to assess how consumers are shopping so far this holiday season.

1. Consumers increased their shopping during the weeks leading up to Black Friday.

During the first three weeks of November, online retail transactions increased +7% globally, continuing a steady uplift from September (+3.1%) and October (+5%).

Retailers in APAC observed the strongest increase out of all regions, with their online transactions increasing +15% during the three weeks leading up to Black Friday. In particular, transactions rose +7% in South Korea and +4% in Japan.

EMEA retailers saw a +7% increase. Online transactions rose +11% in the United Kingdom, +8% in Germany, and +6% in France.

Retailers in the Americas observed modest shopping before the shopping event, as online transactions increased +2%, indicating that shoppers were waiting for Black Friday more than in recent years past. However, Brazil surpassed the region’s levels, and their online transactions rose +11% during the three-week period before Black Friday.

EMEA Daily Indexed Metrics in All Retail, October 2023 – November 2023

2. Black Friday shopping reached a new high.

Online transactions skyrocketed +12.3% worldwide on Black Friday.

The sales frenzy was particularly strong in APAC this year, as online transactions in the region were up +25.5% and traffic was up +13.6%. Notably, online transactions in Japan rose +16%, indicating that the global shopping event is growing more popular than ever here.

3. US Black Friday sales soared across all verticals.

All retail verticals experienced year-over-year growth in online transactions in the US this Black Friday:

US YoY Sales for Top Verticals on Black Friday

4. Total Cyber Weekend sales grew year-on-year.

Across all regions, retailers saw their online sales surpass last year’s Cyber Weekend numbers:

5. The overall average path to purchase was over 2.5 weeks.

On average, first-time buyers for a retailer in the US took 18.3 days from a first visit on a product description page to a completed transaction between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.