Black Friday and Cyber Monday Discount Overview

Working with competitive intelligence provider DataWeave, we aggregated and analyzed data on prices on over 53,000 items on various online shopping sites in five categories: electronics; furniture; health and beauty; men’s fashion; and, women’s fashion.

In this report, we analyze the scale and distribution of price cuts on Amazon.com on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and provide comparisons to Best Buy, Home Depot and Macy’s. We used each product’s price on November 21 as the pre-holiday base and analyzed price differences on November 29 and December 2, 2019.

Overall, men’s fashion offered the highest average discount on both days and furniture the lowest, but furniture had the biggest disparity for the highest discount on each day.

Focus on Amazon

As we show below, on Amazon.com, men’s fashion and women’s fashion both were offered at an average double-digit percentage discount on both days. The average discount for electronics expanded 70 basis points on Cyber Monday, but the highest discount percentage rate offered was the same on both days. The furniture and health and beauty categories also increased their average discounts on Cyber Monday.

[caption id="attachment_101176" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: DataWeave/Coresight Research[/caption]  

When comparing the prices of the products we tracked on the two days, a higher percentage of products were offered at discount on Cyber Monday than on Black Friday. In electronics, 9.1% of the products we analyzed were cheaper on Black Friday than Cyber Monday, while 9.9% were cheaper on Cyber Monday than Black Friday. Another way to read this is that 9.9% of electronics continued to lower their prices on Cyber Monday, a trend we saw in all five categories.

[caption id="attachment_101177" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: DataWeave/Coresight Research[/caption]  

Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday

In the sections below, we discuss our findings by category. A key insight is that Black Friday no longer dominates as the biggest promotional day of the holiday season:

• At Amazon and Home Depot, we found a greater proportion of products on promotion on Cyber Monday than on Black Friday.
• At Amazon and Best Buy, we recorded higher average price discounts on Cyber Monday than on Black Friday.
• However, Macy’s tended to buck both these trends, typically offering more promotions, at a deeper level, on Black Friday. Women’s fashion was one category where we saw Macy’s offer a higher average discount on Cyber Monday.

Electronics

We analyzed the prices of 13,809 products on Amazon.com and 2,617 on BestBuy.com across different electronics subcategories.

BestBuy.com offered the bigger average discount, with a more than 10-percentage-point lead, and a higher percentage of products on sale on both days.

[caption id="attachment_101178" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: DataWeave/Coresight Research[/caption]  

Health & Beauty

We analyzed the prices of 7,508 products on Amazon.com and 3,393 on Macys.com across different health and beauty subcategories.

Macys.com offered bigger average discounts, with an almost 20-percentage-point lead over Amazon.com. However, Amazon.com had a higher percentage of products on sale and the higher discount on both days.

[caption id="attachment_101179" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: DataWeave/Coresight Research[/caption]  

Furniture

We analyzed the prices of 4,808 products on Amazon.com and 4,521 on HomeDepot.com across different subcategories.

HomeDepot.com offered a bigger average discount, with a more than 10-percentage-point lead, while other results were mixed.

[caption id="attachment_101180" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: DataWeave/Coresight Research[/caption]  

Men’s Fashion

We analyzed the prices of 2,088 products on Amazon.com and 6,840 on Macys.com across different subcategories.

Macys.com offered a higher percentage of products on sale and a higher average discount, with an approximately 20-percentage-point lead on both metrics on both days. However, Amazon.com beat Macys.com on the highest discount, slightly.

[caption id="attachment_101181" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: DataWeave/Coresight Research[/caption]  

Women’s Fashion

We analyzed the prices of 2,965 products on Amazon.com and 8,382 on Macys.com across different subcategories.

Macys.com was the winner in all three categories on both days. For percentage of products on sale and average discount, Macys.com had an over 20-percentage-point lead in both metrics on both days.

[caption id="attachment_101182" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: DataWeave/Coresight Research[/caption]  

Price Increases on Amazon.com

Interestingly, we also discovered prices for some products rose on both days compared to November 21. Prices on more products increased on Cyber Monday than on Black Friday across all five categories. Almost one-fifth of products in health and beauty, men’s fashion and women’s fashion were more expensive on Cyber Monday than on November 21.

[caption id="attachment_101183" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: DataWeave/Coresight Research[/caption]   Black Friday and Cyber Monday Online Sales This year, Thanksgiving fell six days later than last year and resulting the shortest possible number of days between Black Friday and Christmas. Many retailers started holiday promotions early, but online sales results on both days were still stronger than last year. On Black Friday, brands and retailers in the US generated $7.2 billion in digital revenue, up 14% over last year, and on Cyber Monday, online sales were $9.4 billion, up 19% from last year. [caption id="attachment_101184" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Source: Salesforce/Adobe[/caption]   About DataWeave Powered by proprietary AI, DataWeave provides competitive-intelligence-as-a-service to e-commerce businesses and consumer brands by aggregating and analyzing data from the web. While e-commerce businesses use DataWeave’s Retail Intelligence product to make smarter pricing and merchandising decisions and drive profitable growth, consumer brands use DataWeave’s Brand Analytics product to protect their brand equity online and optimize the experience delivered to shoppers on e-commerce websites. For more information, visit the DataWeave website.