When we think of November 2020, it often feels like a distant memory. Life in lockdown saw us all confined to our homes for five weeks, only leaving the house for essential travel, a hasty stroll round the park, or the occasional exhilarating trip to Tesco. There were tiers, (and tears!) as the country went from one government scheme to the next and businesses tried to keep up.

But what was bad for our social calendars proved to be excellent for e-commerce.

Our team watched as traffic went up. Sales boomed. Black Friday 2020 smashed all previous records out of the park, and it left us thinking: What on earth will happen next?

Fast forward 12 months, and life was looking very different. Black Friday 2021 was approached with a strange curiosity and a dozen questions.

What if sales wouldn't be as ground-breaking as they were in 2020?

Would we watch sales drop back to 2019 levels? Or would certain industries come out on top?

As summer rolled into autumn, our team prepared for the big day by creating ads, emails, creative and content for every industry from fashion to furniture, food and fitness. We chose to kickstart our Black Friday campaigns a little earlier in November this year, as the data suggested that consumers were expecting sales to run for longer. The majority of our Black Friday campaigns went live on Friday 19th November, a full week before Black Friday itself. It didn’t take long before the shopping trends emerged. Our team of Account Managers and Performance Experts stepped in to analyse what happened.

The Results. 📈

Black Friday 2021 saw one clear winner in the race for sales.

Fashion and accessories.

Across the board we noticed the world’s biggest brands such as Gymshark, Adidas and Reebok start Black Friday early and smash their records, with many brands adding new lines into sale collections every single day.

For our own fashion clients, this success was instantly noticeable. Many tripled their sales compared to the previous year, and some of our fashion brands had their best month of all time.

So why were people rushing to fill their wardrobes? The answer lies in our post-pandemic social calendars.

“Black Friday was successful for pretty much all of my clients,” our Senior Account Manager Monika added, “But particularly jewellery and fashion. Online users are treating themselves and loved ones to nice clothing and accessories - more so than investing in home improvement, which was certainly a huge trend in 2020.”

Last year, luxury jewellery and clothing brands really struggled to gain momentum over Black Friday. Despite the amazing deals, people knew that they wouldn’t be wearing a designer jacket, brand new watch or sparkling necklace over the holiday season.

This year, the glitz and glamour returned.

Luggage, unsurprisingly, saw a huge boom, with client sales doubling from their 2020 month-on-month counterparts in time with the reduced travel restrictions. Many of our jewellery clients enjoyed a huge increase in sales - with both their online stores and physical retail stores doubling or even tripling their revenue against the previous year. Whilst some of this success can be attributed to stores opening up again, the trends online suggest that people are keen to treat their loved ones to something decorative this year.

Of course, not every single industry could have such impressive growth.

Industry-wide, home and garden trends were down on average by 10% this year. Whilst this would seem like quite a setback, this was to be expected, given the amount of time people spent in their homes in 2020.

Our Account Manager Sharon didn’t find this to be such a problem for her accounts: “My furniture clients actually did surprisingly well, given the industry standard - even the ones who had slower summer months had a really good month, so I can't say I saw a decline here. But people are definitely spending more and treating themselves this year compared to last. Last year was all about essentials. This year is definitely all about “me” and gifting.”

Our Marketing Director Matt agreed.

“Gifting site sales were on a par with last year, so it's good to see the Christmas spirit is alive and well.”

Despite various setbacks to businesses in 2021, it’s safe to say that e-commerce has risen above it all. The arrival of the iOS14 update had a drastic effect on the advertising strategies, particularly with Facebook ads and their ROAS. As a result, the brands that still grew this year were those who were relentless throughout on developing their brand and innovating their products.

To combat the lower ROAS on ads, our team stepped up the email marketing. This proved to be hugely successful for our clients, with simple e-shots generating huge revenue, often running into the thousands with each email that went out.

As always, having a unique offering was key to Black Friday success. Our Commercial Director Peter pointed out: “Being original in your offering always helps during Black Friday. This could be in the form of creative, the promotional offer, or when the offer is launched. We’ve seen better success this year launching our campaigns earlier than usual to engage traffic before competitors stepped in.”

So how do we interpret all this data? In some cases, it’s best to compare 2021 results with 2019 instead of 2020. Certain brands saw a staggering increase during lockdown, particularly loungewear and gym equipment, so we have to take these statistics with a pinch of salt. But anomalies aside, it’s been yet another successful year for Shopify merchants worldwide.

Shopify released their own statistics recently, announcing a staggering $2.9 billion of sales over Black Friday for Shopify merchants worldwide. This translated to an increase of 21% from the same day in 2020, and more than double all of Shopify’s sales for 2019. Clearly it’s not just the Christmas spirit that’s alive and well - but also people’s online spending habits.

Despite a crazy year and businesses having to adapt like never before, we’re pleased to say that this Black Friday really was bigger and better than ever.

We’re delighted to have played a part in it.