Previously, we looked at the growing popularity of Singles’ Day outside of China and the opportunity it presents for global retailers, especially in Europe and North America. Last year, several industries showed significant upticks in traffic and sales on Singles’ Day, with the growing trend predicted to continue. So how did this shopping event play out this year, and could Singles’ Day become a real contender alongside other major Q4 online shopping events like Prime Day and Cyber Week? Here’s what we discovered about how eCommerce activity fared on 11/11 this year.
Though initially an exclusively Chinese phenomenon, many global retailers have since caught on to the fact that Singles’ Day is a potentially lucrative add-on event that can help boost Q4 holiday profits. They have already started dedicating considerable resources to promoting special holiday offers and optimizing the customer journey in order to win over online shoppers and bring them back for Cyber Week, Black Friday, and Christmas. This was backed up by sales data we collected for Singles’ Day 2019, which showed that several industries made significant gains last year.
Looking for Love in the Age of a Pandemic
With hundreds of millions of people putting their safety first by sticking to social distancing guidelines and a work-from-home routine, the growth in eCommerce sales so far this year has been historic.
Due to the economic impact of COVID-19, online retailers are looking for creative ways to maximize their eCommerce efforts; and Singles’ Day seems to have arrived as just such an opportunity in a year where retailers must make the most every chance to attract, convert, and retain online customers.
So did retailers outside of China make good on the emerging opportunity that is Singles’ Day? How did online sales perform in 2020 for this event compared to last year?
Looking at our consumer session data, we can see that some industries in North America and Europe experienced notable increases in online sales yesterday when compared to the previous 4 Wednesdays.
As we can also see from the results above, Homeware and Footwear retailers in Europe, as well as Health and Beauty sites in North America saw dramatic spikes in daily average sales yesterday over last year’s Singles’ Day.
These numbers point to an emerging and growing online shopping event outside of China, with every reason to believe that Singles’ Day will continue to grow in importance each and every year.
Retailers Showing Up to the Singles’ Party Earlier This Year
2020 is also presenting some new trends, starting with the fact that by Amazon bumping up Prime Day this year, the Q4 holiday season officially kicks off earlier this year, which means that online retailers need to start competing fiercely earlier as well. But it’s not just retailers competing with each other – traffic hijackers are also lurking in the background waiting for high traffic holidays like Singles’ Day to kick off.
Our data from yesterday’s Singles’ Day event shows that hijacking rates ranged from 18.5% to 25% in these industries, impacting a major portion of Singles’ Day eCommerce traffic. But what’s also immediately apparent from the figures below are the differences between Recovered visitors sessions (site visitors previously impacted by ad injections blocked by Namogoo) and Unaffected visitors (visitors not exposed by ad injections).
Consistent with our data for other peak eCommerce sales events, North American and European retailers preventing ad injections on Singles’ Day saw conversion rates for this top-performing customer segment tower over those for the rest of their site traffic.
In order to compete successfully during these massive annual online shopping events, global retailers need to put a lot of effort into creating an optimized and seamless customer journey experience. Online shoppers have zero tolerance for disruptions, and are constantly bombarded with advertising campaigns and holiday promotions. That’s why online retailers need to be extra vigilant about Customer Journey Hijacking, which can lead to revenue leakage and damage to brand equity.
Ready to stop Customer Journey Hijacking from disrupting your customers before Singles’ Day? Take advantage of our cost-free offer to block ad injections in real time and immediately lift your conversion rate.
