LONDON – 5th December 2017 – Littledata, a data insights business for online retailers, today released analysis from the Black Friday trading period showing retailers who heavily promoted sales during Black Friday weekend 2016 were more likely to have an increase in sales in November 2017.
Using aggregated data from 700 retailers, Littledata found median year-on-year increase in trading volumes in November of 13% for those pushing discounts the previous year, versus only 1% growth for those avoiding Black Friday discounting in 2016.
Littledata’s founder, Edward Upton, says:
“The retailers we work with are often sceptical that Black Friday sales bring increased profitability. Here we have evidence that retailers who embrace the discounting period are building brand loyalty for the longer-term.”
Littledata will be providing further aggregate retail analysis in 2018, as part of their service to Shopify stores and their public benchmarks of web performance.
For the analysis, Littledata looked at aggregate data from 143 retailers who participated most in 2016 Black Friday (as measured by the increase in purchase transactions over their normal trading), versus 143 retailers who did not. For the first 23 days of November 2017 – before Black Friday – the median year-on-year increase in purchases was 13% for those pushing discounts the previous year, versus only 1% growth for those avoiding Black Friday discounting *.
* Full details are available in our blog post on the topic