Has Cyber Monday Been Replaced By Cyber Month?

This year due to Coronavirus many retailers have been forced to take their usual Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales plans and move them online to avoid the traditional ‘Doorbuster’ situation which would be impossible to manage with social distancing regulations.

Because of this many businesses started their sales way earlier than usual with some running sales online throughout the whole of November.

Linnworks a multichannel eCommerce platform tool has compiled data from over 3000 online retailers from across Europe and the USA which you can see below.

What the graph above shows is that throughout pretty much the entirety of November 2020 saw a big increase in sales volume compared to the previous year.

Key Notes from the Linnworks data

• During the weekends leading up to Black Friday/Cyber Monday more than 50%-60% YoY increases in online shopping.
• Black Friday had a 22% increase in online shopping
• Cyber Monday fell drastically short of trends seen throughout the rest of November and had only a 1% YoY increase.

Has Coronavirus Killed Cyber Monday?

The numbers do not look great for Cyber Monday this year but it’s impossible to argue that on the whole the eCommerce growth for 2020 has been huge and most likely helped massively by the impact of Coronavirus.

Shopify just announced over $5.1 Billion worth of sales for the 4 day weekend from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. However across Europe many countries including France and the UK have been in full lockdowns for most of November with non essential retailers being forced to close, along with a number of cities across the US experiencing restrictions too.

With people being forced to stay inside and certainly not participate in the door busting Black Friday style madness we have witnessed in years gone by. Couple this with the mental health affects of people turning to eCommerce to try and cheer themselves up, it is perhaps unsurprising that Cyber Monday may have actually taken place through every Monday in November, not just the one following Black Friday.

This begs the question what can we anticipate to see next year in 2021. Will Coronavirus still be a major global issue? Will people be excited to return to stores and Cyber Monday will regain its online crown? Or will 2020 now set the precedent for buying behaviours going forward?

Only time will tell, as right now there are far too many variables at play for anyone to convincingly predict.

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