In a press release Saturday, Shopify (SHOP +1.95%) announced that merchants using its e-commerce platform achieved record global sales of $2.4 billion on Black Friday alone. This represented an increase of 75% over 2019.
More than 1 million merchants in 175 countries helped boost the digital sales watermark, with the festivities beginning in New Zealand and continuing around the world. By 8 a.m. EST on Friday, Shopify had already achieved $1 billion in sales.
Image source: Getty Images.
Shopify also released other metrics to illustrate the early success of its holiday shopping season. The average Black Friday shopping cart totaled $90.70, an increase of 11% compared to the year-ago period. With more people shopping from home due to the pandemic, mobile sales edged lower to 67%, down from 69% in the prior-year period. At the same time, desktop sales climbed to 33%, up from 31%.
This underpins other data that suggested more consumers have pivoted to shopping online in the face of the pandemic. A report from Adobe (ADBE 0.67%) Analytics found that online spending during Black Friday jumped nearly 22%, according to a report by CNBC.
At the same time, preliminary figures showed that retail-store traffic dropped to abysmal levels, down roughly 52% compared to 2019, according to data released by Sensormatic Solutions. The report found that traffic levels were also down for the period beginning on Sunday, Nov. 22, and ending on Black Friday, sliding 45%. The report suggested that fewer in-store doorbuster sales and store closures on Thanksgiving, as well as the increasing adoption of e-commerce, contributed to the decline.
In 2019, Shopify reported sales of $2.9 billion on its platform between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, an increase of 61% over the prior-year period. Investors should stay tuned as Shopify appears poised to demolish the sales records it set just last year.
