• Black Friday online sales are expected to reach $9.8 billion in the US alone in 2023, an increase of 7.5% from 2022.
• Global Black Friday online sales amounted to $65.3 billion in 2022.
• 74% of shoppers don’t have a specific item in mind when they begin their Black Friday shopping journey.
• 141 million marketing emails were sent on Black Friday 2022.

58% of Americans (196.7 million) participated in Black Friday 2022, shopping online or in stores. This year, experts predict that Black Friday sales in America are set to increase by 7.5% from $9.12 billion in 2022 to $9.8 billion.

This surge follows the 3.5% growth observed in global Black Friday online sales, which reached a staggering $65.3 billion in 2022 across over 30 countries.

Black Friday 2022 saw a notable shift in consumer behaviour as 74% of shoppers embarked on their Black Friday journey without a specific item in mind.

This departure from traditional shopping lists suggests a more exploratory and spontaneous approach, signalling a change in the dynamics of the Black Friday experience where shoppers are straying from need–based shopping.

10 Tips to Getting Ready for Black Friday Sales

To target the massive market of Black Friday shoppers in 2022, 141 million marketing emails were sent. Email campaigns have long been an effective method of online communication to capture consumer attention and drive sales.

Personalized email campaigns achieved on average a 30.32% higher open rate and a 49.66% higher click rate than non-personalized campaigns, showing the importance of tailoring campaigns to each individual potential buyer.

The most effective Black Friday marketing channels were email, social media, and paid search in 2022. Paid search emerged as the biggest sales driver, contributing to 28% of online sales during Black Friday 2022.

Last year’s data emphasizes the importance of a multi-channel approach for businesses looking to maximize their impact and reach a diverse audience.

Black Friday Ecommerce Statistics

• Online shoppers spent $9.12 billion online on Black Friday in 2022.
• Ecommerce sales accounted for 42% of total Black Friday sales in 2022.
• Shopify had a record-setting Black Friday with sales of $3.36 billion – that’s an increase of 17% over 2021.
• Credit cards were used by 49% of online shoppers using them to make a purchase in 2022.
• The key times for shoppers shopping for Black Friday deals in the US were midnight and 2pm. – Source: WebsiteBuilderExpert

Google’s data revealed a 15% weekly rise in search volume for Black Friday-related deals since mid-August, showcasing the sustained anticipation and early interest in the annual shopping event.

This early surge in interest highlights the need for businesses to strategically plan and execute their Black Friday marketing campaigns well in advance to capture the attention of the ever-eager consumer base.

In terms of customer engagement, the use of chatbots witnessed a global surge, with a 57% increase in messages on Black Friday 2022.

Infobip Launches Click-to-chat Ad Analytics for Social Media

This increase signifies the growing reliance on technology to enhance the shopping experience and address customer inquiries promptly, showcasing the evolving nature of customer interactions in the digital age.

48% of online sales (up from 44% in 2021) originated from smartphones on Black Friday 2022. This data underscores the increasing reliance on mobile devices for seamless and convenient shopping experiences offered by the likes of Amazon, Walmart, Target, and new market entrant – TikTok Shop.

78% of web traffic originated from smartphones on Black Friday 2022. Evidently, ecommerce stores that are not optimised for mobile risk losing a large proportion of their traffic and sales this Black Friday. Over 1.31 billion people worldwide are using mobile payment apps in 2023. Furthermore, 13% of Black Friday online shoppers used Apple Pay to complete their transactions in 2022, up from 8% the previous year.

Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) experienced a 85% growth for online orders during Cyber Week in 2022 compared to the preceding week. Flexible BNPL payment options such as Klarna, Paypal, and Afterpay are becoming more popular as they provide consumers with greater financial flexibility and control over their shopping experiences. BNPL presents a budget-friendly option compared to credit cards and other loans that online businesses should be offering their shoppers, especially as interest rates soar.

Emma Ryan, Website Builder Expert’s Senior Writer, comments:

“It’s important that online businesses start thinking about Black Friday as soon as possible this year. We recommend signposting your offers and bargains early with pop-ups, banners, and carefully crafted email marketing and social media campaigns. Not only does this help build the hype for your business ahead of Black Friday but customers will know what to expect during this season of deals”.

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This year, in addition to this active campaign of banking credentials theft, cybercriminals did not stand still and developed new scam schemes.

Ahead of Black Friday in particular, fraudsters used a new type of phishing scheme for the first time exploiting Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services.

These are some of the findings from Kaspersky’s ‘How customers got scammed amid the Black Friday season in 2022’ report aimed at educating users on staying safe during the sales season.

Banking Trojans are widely used tools in the arsenal of cybercriminals profiting from the sales season. Once the user browses in an online store, the Trojan saves all the data the user enters into the website’s forms.

This means cybercriminals get access to a credit or debit card number, expiration date and CVV, and the victim’s site login credentials. Having obtained this information, the attackers may use it to empty the user’s bank account, use their card details for purchases or sell the data in the Dark web stores.

After a rapid drop in the number of attacks with banking Trojans in 2021, cybercriminals have returned to this type of threat with renewed strength. In 2022, the number of attacks doubled compared to the same time period in 2021.

From January to October, Kaspersky products detected and prevented almost 20 million attacks, meaning that the overall growth in the number of detections is 92%.

The sales season inevitably attracts the attention of shoppers and retailers. However, it is also a favorite time for cybercriminals, who do not hesitate to cash in on online customers.

Cybercriminals create juicy offers that are fake and expire quickly, so the user must hurry to get the goods for free or at the lowest price.

This is where cybercriminals catch customers, who are hungry for freebies and don’t look carefully at the site they are entering their data into: the phishing or the original one.

In 2022, Kaspersky experts also found numerous examples of phishing pages for the first time abusing BNPL services.

These tools allow customers to split the cost of the purchase into several interest-free installments. Therefore, these services appeal to consumers, especially youngsters, and have proven to be particularly popular during shopping periods such as Black Friday.

An example of this scam is the misuse of a popular service named Afterpay (Clearpay in the U.K. and Italy), with 20 million active users across the world. Perpetrators set up a page mimicking the official website, tricking unsuspecting victims into entering their credit card numbers and CVVs into a fake form.

After the user has entered their details, cybercriminals will try to steal as much money as possible from this card, emptying the victim’s wallet.

“The shopping event of the year – Black Friday – is a hot time not only for sellers and their buyers, but also for scammers who want to steal as much money as possible from hurried customers. The new scheme exploiting Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services only proves that cybercriminals do not stop in their desire to attack victims and come up with new methods to do so. On ordinary days the customer can easily understand: if the product is too cheap, it’s most likely a scam, but during the Black Friday sales period this fact isn’t so clear. Shoppers become less vigilant and are therefore an easy target for cybercriminals. That’s why it’s so important to pay attention to which site you buy from, be careful with unfamiliar companies and use a reliable security solution,” comments Olga Svistunova, security expert at Kaspersky.