‘Black Friday’ in U.S. brings great news for global e-commerce

The biggest shopping day of the year for the United States – on the Friday following Thanksgiving, also known as “Black Friday” – has come and gone, leaving records shattered in its wake. American retailers brought in a record US$7.9 billion in combined online sales during Black Friday and Thanksgiving, amounting to a 17.9 percent increase over the prior year.

According to Business Insider, the most notable retailers emerging from the holiday shopping scrum include Amazon, Macy’s, Gap, Kohl’s, J.C. Penney and Walmart. Amazon, alone, accounted for between 45 and 50 percent of all online Black Friday sales.

Sales figures for brick-and-mortar stores have not yet been released, but CNN reports that early estimates indicate slightly reduced foot traffic, amounting to a less-than-1-percent dip, year-over-year.

In the meantime, holiday shopping remains active with the advent of today’s “Cyber Monday.” Business Insider reports the expectation from market analysts that this Cyber Monday – so called for the reported surge in e-commerce after American shoppers return from the four-day holiday and begin shopping online while at work – will set the record for the largest online shopping day in U.S. history, with more than US$6.6 billion in sales expected. These figures, however, still fall well-short of China’s one-day “11.11” shopping event, which took in US$25.3 billion earlier this month.

Despite the unprecedented sales numbers emerging from 2017’s holiday season, the integrators are ready to deliver. FedEx said it anticipates handling between 380 million and 400 million packages during the season, with an average of 26 million packages expected daily for the three remaining Mondays during the holiday season. Meanwhile, UPS partnered with Shopify ahead of the holiday season in a move that makes smaller retailers more competitive with Amazon’s logistics network. UPS said it expects to deliver about 750 million packages this holiday season.