• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, November 28, 2022

Consumers rushed online to do their holiday shopping on Black Friday. Site traffic was up 11% YoY, and 124% from a typical day in 2022, according to the Retail Marketing Insights Report, a study by Bluecore. 

The result was an overall 5% increase in orders and 1% in average order value. 

Despite its high traffic numbers, footwear saw a 3% decrease in sales and 4% falloff in average order value. Also, jewelry & luxury dipped by 2% in the number of sales and 12% in AOV. 

In contrast, consumer electronics rose by 17% in the number of orders and 0% in AOV.

First-time buyers — and fifth-time buyers — made the most Black Friday purchases. Overall, 37% were driven by first-time buyers -- with 21% were driven by fifth-time, and 16% for second-time. 

But it depended on the category. In consumer electronics, 67% were first-time buyers, compared to 59% for jewelry and luxury, 49% for sporting goods and 47% for footwear. 

But 50% of health & beauty purchases were made by fifth-time buyers, as were 44% of gift & floral purchases.

And the volume of buying did not seem to correlate with the number of buyers — there was a 5% decline in first-time buyers and 17% boost in fifth-time buyers.

Moreover, there were modest disparities in AOV between first- and fifth-time purchasers. The averages were:

• First-time — $128 
• Second-time — $119
• Third-time — $118
• Fourth-time — $118 
• Fifth-time — $118 

Fifth-time consumer electronics had the highest AOV: $493. 

People started research products early this year — 44% did so within 30 days prior to purchase, up from 40% in 2021.  

Of those that visited ecommerce sites, 74% were unidentified by grands, 24% were identified and 2% were newly identified. The consumer electronics and sporting goods sectors had the most unidentified shoppers —at  89% apiece. 

Bluecore analyzed data from 91 million first-party cookies, 729  million shopper events, 4 million unique products, 3.2 million orders and $388 million in total sales across 138 retail brands.