Now that the marathon shopping spree of the Black Friday/Cyber

Monday weekend is over, it’s time to take a breath and look back at

how successfully all those deep discounts offered by both brand

manufacturers and 3rd party sellers translated into actual sales on

Amazon.

OCR’s Amazon.com Black Friday/Cyber Monday Recap: What Brand Manufacturers Need to KnowBy Jeff Brown, Director of Client Services at One Click Retail

There’s no denying the fact: Amazon’s Friday and Monday

sales dwarfed those of Saturday and Sunday. This despite the

average discount of 57% on Sunday was greater than Cyber

Monday’s 45% average. The deepest discounts on Amazon

(which averaged overall at 53%) occurred on Black Friday,

which saw an average of 70% off list prices.

How customers shopped this Cyber Weekend: It’s all about the deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Still, despite lower discounts being offered on other days, Cyber Monday lived up to

its name as the online shopping day, with total Amazon 1st party sales at more than

$640M, topping Friday’s $515M+. While this is a sizable 24% difference between

these “traditional” rivals, the real drama unfolded between the ones caught in the

middle. Saturday’s sales dropped 6% YoY to $190 million, and Sunday’s surged passed

$310M (a 49% spike over last year’s sales). Is this the beginning of a new rivalry? And

should brand manufacturers consider Sunday as an opportunity for next year’s

growth?

Side Note: Another contender may be entering the fray. This year OCR saw a lift in Amazon traffic starting

Thanksgiving evening, instead of last year’s traffic increase that began early Black Friday morning.

While 3rd party sellers offered the lion’s share of the promotions, it was

1st party sellers who benefited the most this Cyber Weekend with

overall sales growth on Amazon up 18% from last year. It’s true that 3rd

party sellers experienced strong YoY growth at around 40%, but

because of their vast numbers on Amazon, the increase in sales was

substantially diluted across the entire base.

Direct from the manufacturer… by way of Amazon.com

The overall top product groups for the Black Friday/Cyber

Monday period, including both 1st and 3rd party sellers, were:

Apparel, Shoes, Jewelry, Home and Sports

These two categories saw noticeable declines in 1P sales compared with 2015.

Apparel was down by 20% year over year, and Shoes saw a drop of 27%.

Similar to the overall top product groups that saw a YoY declines yet still made

the top 5 in terms of total sales on Amazon, Video Games and Home

Entertainment experienced declines (on one or both days) but still made the top

10 product groups for 1st party sellers in terms of overall sales.

Apparel and Shoes were the categories most heavily promoted via 3rd party sellers.

Keeping with the trend we noted in early holiday season sales in October through

Thanksgiving, Home Entertainment sales were down from 2015 by 42%. Video

Games sales also continued their decline with a drop of 17% from last year’s Black

Friday numbers. Despite the downward seeming trend, Video Games rallied at

the end of Cyber Week to more than $160M in overall sales, with PlayStation 4

Slim 500GB Console leading the charge with over $10M in sales on Cyber Monday

alone, making this one of Amazon’s top selling product groups despite the YoY

decline on Black Friday.

While everyone could predict that the PlayStation 4 Console would

be one of the best sellers during this shopping weekend, Black Friday

proved that we love our crock pots. The Instant Pot 7-in-1 Multi-

Functional Pressure Cooker raked in close to $15M in sales on Black

Friday, propelling Kitchen’s 46% YoY sales increase on Black Friday

and taking the 4th spot in total 1st party sales for Cyber Weekend.

Video game consoles vs crock pots: Yes, the day matters

Crock pots on Black Friday and Video game consoles on Cyber Monday. So,

which day is best for brand manufacturers to drive promotions on Amazon? This

year, manufacturers were more selective and the results speak for themselves:

The product groups that chose Cyber Monday as their day this year on Amazon

experienced declines in Black Friday YoY sales: Video Games (-47%), Home

Entertainment (-42%), Shoes (-38%) and Wireless (-23%). Home Entertainment,

for example, which sold 39% of their total weekend sales last year on Cyber

Monday, shifted their promotions to Monday this year and subsequently

experienced a drop in YoY sales.

Those that chose Black Friday as their day to compete on Amazon and with

traditional brick-and-mortar sales saw their YoY sales jump: Toys (+26%), Kitchen

(+46%), Home (+30%) and Home Improvement (+105%) indicate that holiday

shoppers are no longer just looking for the best deal on their list; they’re looking

for the most convenient way to buy them. If they can find what they’re looking

for online, then why bother with the madness and mayhem of in-store Black

Friday shopping? Maybe this is the reason for the spike in Amazon traffic on

Thursday evening: shoppers were deciding whether to buy wish-list items on

Amazon or set off at midnight to battle the crowds.

This year’s overall 1P sales on Amazon suggest that

shoppers are choosing online more than ever over

shopping in stores: Total Black Friday / Cyber Monday

Amazon sales jumped 18% this year, pulling in over $1.6B.

Once brand manufacturers decide whom they’re competing

with (brick-and-mortars, other brand manufacturers or 3rd

party sellers on Amazon), it’s time to figure out the discount

level that brings in the money.

The sweet spot for brand manufacturers: Where day, discount and desire meet

While many of the deals offered on Black Friday were in the 20-30%

range, most of the sales were on items discounted between 40% and

50%. (Why the 60-80% discount range doesn’t translate in the largest

sales on Amazon is a topic for another OCR Insights article, but lack of

shopper interest combined with the smallest item prices are factors to

consider. Let’s face it, no matter how deeply discounted a PlayStation 3

console is, if PlayStation 4 is what shoppers want, then that’s what they’ll

buy.)

For the manufacturers that did choose Black Friday as

their Amazon day, the lift in sales from their promotions

clearly impacted their YoY sales for both Black Friday

and for Cyber Weekend overall.

What did Kitchen and Camera do right? From the total sales

this Cyber Weekend, we definitely know that shoppers love

crock pots. And from the spike you see above, they still love

their cameras. On Black Friday, with a 31% discount and a sales

price of $90, the GoPro Hero pulled in more than $3M, making

it one of the top selling items for 2016.

There is no question that the Instant Pot 7-in-1 Multi-Functional

Pressure Cooker is Cyber Weekend 2016’s darling. Traditionally a Black

Friday brick-and-mortar purchase, this “little pot that could” rang up

nearly $15M in sales, to be Amazon’s top selling Black Friday item. By

offering a 47% discount and a sale price of $69, this Instant Pot pulled

in 116% more than it did last year.

Be like the crock pot: Desired and discounted

Winning on Cyber Weekend requires brand manufacturers to leverage promotions

– no question about it. The impact that promotions have on sales range between

10X and 100X, as the Instant Pot demonstrates. But as more and more brand

manufacturers compete on Amazon, not just in the US but internationally as well

(with 64% of total promotions coming from the UK, Germany, France and Canada),

manufacturers must decide which day to focus on – and that decision should be

based on a deep dive into each product group’s drivers and setbacks, and the

opportunities for growth.

Key Learnings

In the next OCR Insights article, we’ll be taking the first of many

product group deep dives as we explore Amazon’s performance

in Grocery compared to total retail sales, both online and

offline. So make sure to stay up-to-date with the latest insights

from One Click Retail by checking out:

www.oneclickretail.com/insights, and following us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

One Click Retail (OCR) is a market leader in eCommerce data measurement, sales analytics and search optimization for brand manufacturers in North America, Europe and Asia. Thanks to our proprietary sales calculations that are 98.5% accurate down to the SKU level, OCR’s accuracy is unrivaled in the marketplace. The OCR Product Suite provides 1st and 3rd party business intelligence across the 30 largest retailers such as Amazon, Walmart, Target, Staples and Home Depot. The world’s top brands, such as Procter & Gamble, Panasonic, Nestle, Hamilton Beach and HP, rely on OCR insights to drive sales and profitability across eCommerce.

Founded in 2013 by eCommerce experts from Amazon, Walmart, Target, Overstock and other leading retailers, OCR was acquired in 2016 by Ascential plc (LSE: ASCL.L), a UK-based international B2B media company with a focused portfolio of market-leading events and information services products.

To learn more about how OCR can provide your brand with the competitive edge in today’s ecommerce marketplace, visit www.oneclickretail.com.

About One Click Retail