Shopify merchants saw huge earnings on the platform over the Black Friday through Cuber Monday shopping weekend this year. Over the Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) shopping weekend Shopify (NYSE: SHOP) was generating peak sales of $870,000 and 10,978 orders per minute.
This resulted in Shopify merchants collectively making more than $1.5 billion in sales from November 24 to November 26.
Although the vast majority of sales took place in North America, Shopify reported close to one in five or 18.54% of all orders placed on the platform were being shipped internationally.
For small businesses who use Shopify as their ecommerce solution, the numbers are positive all around. But in order to take advantage of BFCM, business owners have to get ready earlier to handle the rush.
On its blog, Shopify addressed the need for merchants to get ready ahead of time. The company said, “For merchants, the time to prepare your store, offers, campaigns, and shipping processes may be earlier than you think. While there’s always room to improvise, sales ramped up as early as Monday, November 19th, and November 22nd—Thanksgiving Day in the United States.”
It goes on to say, “Preparing earlier can ensure you’re ready for a full week of sales, along with the shipping and support workload needed to fulfill them.”
2018 Shopify BFCM Results
The Shopify data for the 2018 BFCM comes from the more than 600,000 merchants in 175 countries around the world on the platform from November 23 to November 26, 2018 during the sales event.
Shopify said one of the goals of this analysis is to help merchants recognize the trends taking place this year so they will be better prepared for 2019. And one of the biggest trends is the increasing number of people who use their mobile device to make a purchase.
This year 66% of sales for Shopify merchants around the world came from mobile devices, with the remaining 34% taking place on desktops.
Having an ecommerce platform which is optimized for mobile with responsive themes and mobile friendly payments is essential to take advantage of this growing trend.
The sales for BFCM started to pick up earlier than the shopping weekend officially kicked off. For Black Friday, sales started to rise as early as Monday on November 19.
The peak numbers for Black Friday took place on the actual day with 12 pm getting the highest number of orders in the 24-hour period.
For Cyber Monday the peak was achieved at 9 pm, but the traffic was on the rise all day long. There was a lull between 1pm-4pm, but it picked up again until 9 pm.
When it comes to conversion rates email continues to lead the way with 4.38%. This was followed by 4.35% for direct marketing followed by search at 3.60% and social media coming in last at 2%.
Shopify says one of the benefits of using email is it provides a platform for directly connecting with existing customers and interested subscribers.
The company adds merchants should use this channel year-round and not just during the busy holiday shopping season.
The takeaway for this year’s BFCM is businesses have to get ready early, optimize their mobile platform, and not to forget about email. So as the 2019 BFCM comes around, don’t forget about these tips.
Image: Shopify