BigCommerce eCommerce Merchants Have Great Start to Holiday Shopping Season – Smashing Records on Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day

Black Friday marks the official start of the holiday shopping season and can be a good indicator for online merchants on how the rest of the season will unfold.

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The National Retail Federation (NRF) projected US holiday sales (Nov. 1 to Dec. 31) to grow between 6% to 8% year-over-year (YoY), pushing to a new record between $942 billion and $960 billion.

While the NRF looks at US online and offline retail, Adobe Analytics, which tracks online sales only, predicted 2022 holiday season sales to reach $209.7 billion, representing a 2.5% growth YoY.

The difference in growth between overall retail (offline and online) can be attributed to more consumers feeling comfortable this year shopping in retail stores as Americans have moved on from Covid.

Salesforce also tracks consumer spending online, but on a global scale. And according to the Salesforce Shopping Index, 2022 holiday season sales are expected to reach $1.12 trillion worldwide, remaining essentially flat over last year.

This upshot from this preseason data is that American consumers are expected to spend more this holiday season than last year, even online, versus consumers globally.

BigCommerce Merchants Blow Past Macro Predictions

With Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday data tabulated, BigCommerce merchants, collectively, are off to a great start to the holiday season.

The online eCommerce platform reported that on Black Friday, merchant sales increased a whopping 31% (YoY), bolstered by a 25% (YoY) increase in total orders and a 4.5% (YoY) increase in Average Order Volume (AOV).

And with Thanksgiving travel topping pre-pandemic levels, potentially suggesting less online interactions as more families gathered — maybe even for the first time in a couple of years due to the pandemic — BigCommerce merchants still outclassed other online cohorts.

On Thanksgiving day, sales for BigCommerce merchants grew 23% (YoY) versus last year, supported by a 22% (YoY) increase in total orders and a 1% rise in AOV.

By comparison, Adobe reported that Thanksgiving Day online sales by US consumers grew 2.9% (YoY) and on Black Friday sales increased 2.3% (YoY).

What makes the BigCommerce growth data even more interesting is that the company is reporting eCommerce sales from all of its merchants globally, not just sales by US merchants.

And since Salesforce predicted holiday season sales to remain flat worldwide, BigCommerce merchants are smashing all holiday season predictions by a huge margin.

So far, BigCommerce merchants are off to a great start this holiday season, with record-breaking sales on Thanksgiving day and Black Friday.

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