As brick-and-mortar stores were forced to close during America’s months-long economic shutdown, online retailers experienced an unprecedented boom in activity.
Throughout the entire month of April, online shopping websites dominated in sales, even surpassing Black Friday records.
Target’s Daily April Sales Surpassed Cyber Monday
Target remained open during the coronavirus pandemic as an essential retailer, but that didn’t stop customers from ordering online anyway.
In the past three months, about 5 million people shopped on Target’s website for the first time, the company announced recently. In fact, the retailer’s online sales surged 141% when compared to April 2019.
“On an average day in April, our operations were filling many more items and orders than last year’s Cyber Monday, a day for which we had planned months ahead of time,” explained Target CEO Brian Cornell.
Other big box stores like Walmart and Home Depot enjoyed the same rise in sales as some of the only essential stores allowed to remain open during the pandemic.
Daily Ecommerce Traffic Surpassed Last Year’s Black Friday
The ecommerce marketing data platform PriceSpider recently released a report comparing the average day of online shopping April to that of a normal Black Friday.
“In the past few weeks, we’ve seen historic shifts across ecommerce, whether it be how much they’re buying, what they’re buying or where they’re buying it,” said PriceSpider CEO Anthony Ferry. By partnering with thousands of online stores, including Target, Walmart, and Amazon, PriceSpider determined that overall online shopping traffic grew 108 percent over the year’s average.
But it’s not just traffic; it’s sales as well. The sales between April 22 and April 28 alone were 22 percent higher than the week of Black Friday in 2019. Unlike Black Friday, which is driven by sales and discounts, April’s sales spike may be attributed to consumers’ need to stock up on essentials they’d normally purchase in-store.
Buy Online, Pick Up In Store Sales Tripled
Another online sales trend earned newfound attention in April: Buy Online, Pick Up In Store. Though this “BOPIS” system has been readily available at most major retailers for a few years, it achieved record-breaking sales in April as consumers sought to avoid in-store shopping.
According to data in Adobe Analytics’ April ecommerce report, the Buy Online, Pick Up in Store demand for everything from pajamas to alcohol surged in the month of April. Many stores like Target experienced up to triple the demand for its same-day BOPIS services in the first quarter. Other stores were prompted by the COVID crisis to offer BOPIS for the very first time.
Sources