10 actionable insights for retail and eCommerce marketers from Black Friday weekend 2023

1. High inflation had little impact over the Black Friday weekend

According to Nielsen, the same basket of goods costs global consumers 18% more in 2023, compared to 2022. So, it’s unsurprising that many brands thought this would impact sales over Black Friday; the cost of living crisis paired with inflation does not sound like a recipe for high consumer spending.

However, we found that shoppers were still willing to spend money on Black Friday deals, with an 11% increase in AOV over the weekend for retail brands. For retail and e-commerce marketers, this means optimizing your marketing strategy to ensure a great customer experience is critical, regardless of market conditions. 

2. Consumer electronics shoppers were the most likely to spend more

Did you buy yourself or someone else a gaming console this Black Friday? We know a lot of you did—it was the most popular category for consumer electronics! We found that consumer electronics shoppers were the most likely to spend more, with a 12.92% increase in AOV over Black Friday weekend compared to the rest of the year, the highest AOV increase of any other retail category.

If you’re a consumer electronics marketer, how are you making sure you get your fair market share? Is your website optimized for increased sales? Are you using marketing tactics such as social proof, advanced personalization, and omnichannel engagement to improve performance? Because if you’re not, you should be. Download our Black Friday ebook The Big Book of Black Friday Ideas to gain access to 24 tried-and-tested strategies for increasing marketing performance during peak season.

3. Shoppers were happier to try new brands this year compared to last year

We found 54.23% of retail shoppers purchased from brands they’d never shopped with before in 2023, up from 45.23% last year—that’s a 17.30% increase in new visitors year-over-year. This means there’s an incredible opportunity for retailers in the coming months to nurture these new shoppers into life-long loyal customers. But how? 

These new customers need to feel valued, appreciated, and understood. So retailers need to ensure the experience that each of these new customers has with their brand is timely, relevant, and entirely unique to them. 

Given that it takes three or more purchases to build brand loyalty, you need to start by convincing your new customer to come back and do business with you. Obviously, a large part of this is delivering a great product in the first place, but after that, success relies heavily on delivering an entirely personalized experience. If you can show your new customer you understand them better than anyone, they’ll be more inclined to spend their money with you. This means personalizing the experience based on past behavior, purchase history, and online behavior is critical for driving long-term loyalty.

4. WhatsApp was the most conversion-boosting channel

What’s one of the biggest learnings marketers should take with them into 2024? Well, the data suggests that sleeping on your WhatsApp strategy is a big red flag. Why? Because Insider found that WhatsApp was the most conversion-boosting channel over Black Friday weekend. Promotional WhatsApp messages were 468.53% more likely to drive sales than email—so if you’re not already using WhatsApp, you need to get involved.

Luckily, we have an entire ebook dedicated to helping brands rethink their approach to WhatsApp. Download today to discover how you can use WhatsApp to boost sales by connecting with your audience closer than you ever have before.

5. Shoppers valued the opinions of peers more than ever

Social proof is so effective because it uses data from real customers to vouch for the popularity of your products. Whether it’s highlighting how many customers are viewing an item or how many have added it to their basket, social proof banks on FOMO (the fear of missing out) to encourage customers to purchase from you…because lots of others are too. 

This is a simple but impactful strategy for brands to win in 2024. Especially since Insider found brands that used social proof on their product detail pages were 19.47% more likely to encourage customers to add items to their basket. 

For example, retail powerhouse Hunkemoller used Insider’s social proof tool to increase conversions by 20%. “When we were introduced to Insider’s social proof technology, it sounded like we found what we were looking for, however, we had our doubts about how effective it might be,” said Hunkemoller’s eCommerce Manager. 

“We were pleasantly surprised when we saw the results and all this in just a month’s time. A 20% increase in conversions on the desktop web using only Social Proof is truly remarkable. We also loved that Insider’s Social Proof campaigns are customizable—which enabled us to personalize it to our brand requirements.” – eCommerce Manager at Hunkemoller

6. Unsurprisingly, Black Friday is the most critical shopping day of the weekend

Despite now being a four-day-long shopping extravaganza (starting with Black Friday and ending on Cyber Monday), Friday is still the best day to capitalize on consumer spending. The sum of revenue generated by Insider’s clients across Black Friday weekend was $271,316,666, of which 41.95% was generated on Black Friday alone. 

For marketers and e-commerce professionals, this means planning accordingly and implementing your strategies so they’re ready to go when Black Friday swings around, because if not you might be missing the vast majority of your discount shoppers! Waiting until Cyber Monday is a big no-no.

7. For the first time ever, more than half of online spending was from mobile devices

In 2023, mobile retail e-commerce sales were projected to exceed $510 billion. Insider’s data backed this up: we found that improved product discovery and shopping experiences on mobile made it easier for consumers to complete purchases on their smartphones in 2023 compared to last year. Conversion rates on mobile were up from 49.82% to 53.26%. 

Today, there are approximately 6.92 billion smartphone users worldwide, which means over 86% of the world’s population owns a mobile phone. This means mobile shopping will only grow (and get much easier) in the coming years, so brands need to be at the forefront of mobile commerce or they’ll get left behind.

For success in 2024 and beyond, brands need to focus on building an innovative mobile strategy, such as creating better product discovery and personalization on mobile. Insider’s InStory is great for this; this thumbnail-to-fullscreen experience builder helps marketers get more eyes on their content and products through a fun, snackable storytelling format on mobile. 

At Insider, we’re also proud to have been named the #1 Best Mobile Marketing Software in the G2 Fall’23 Report, outplaying other vendors with the highest user satisfaction score: 100% of users rated us above 4 stars, and 86% of users gave us a 5-star rating.

8. Improving product discovery is big business for retail brands

2024 is the year we need to talk about poor search experiences. A recent Google Cloud-commissioned Harris Poll survey found that search abandonment (when someone looks for a product online, can’t find it, then leaves)—costs retailers more than $2 trillion annually. This means that enterprise businesses with 1,000s of SKUs don’t just need great search—they simply can’t afford to ignore it.

This Black Friday, Insider’s data found that reducing the number of clicks a consumer needs to make a purchase from 6 to 4 can increase CVR by up to 187.23%. In 2024, brands need to focus on making the product discovery experience as quick and seamless as possible to improve their bottom line. 

At Insider, we help retailers worldwide boost product discovery with our AI-powered site search and merchandising tool, Eureka. This tool recommends relevant products based on past and predicted user behavior, helping customers find what they’re looking for in the shortest time possible.

9. Strategic discounts are 214.33% more likely to engage shoppers

Consumers expect unique experiences when they’re shopping online; if they don’t feel understood and valued by your brand, they’ll go elsewhere. This means personalization is the key ingredient for retail success—a learning that must extend to your discounts and deals, too. 

Generic, one-size-fits-all offers are over. Our recent Black Friday analysis found that strategic discounts (discounts that are tailored to the customer’s behavior, purchase history, and intent) are 214.33% more likely to engage shoppers. When an offer is personalized, customers are more likely to add items to their basket, which helps improve profitability and performance. It’s all about unique, relevant, and timely deals that build stronger brand love and loyalty.

10. The ultimate product category winners in 2023

And finally, here are this year’s most popular product categories ranked by the number of product views across mobile add web:

Preparing for success in 2024 and beyond

It’s never too soon to be thinking about your Black Friday marketing strategy. By starting early and strategically planning your campaigns, you gain a significant competitive advantage during the fiercest shopping period of the year.

So if you’re ready to learn how to smash your sales targets out of the park for Black Friday 2024, we’ve got you covered. Insider’s Big Book of Black Friday Ideas is packed full of 24 tried-and-tested marketing tactics to increase customer acquisition, boost sales, and improve long-term customer loyalty.

Discover how leading global brands like Samsung, LEGO, Adidas, Clarins, and Slazenger use Insider to cut through the noise and ensure peak season success by downloading the ebook today.

Learn more

And lastly, if you’re looking for more information about how we help retail brands like yours take their marketing performance to the next level, take a look at our retail success stories. Or book a demo with one of our retail experts who’d be delighted to show you how we do things around here.