Black Friday cross-border purchases soared says Global-e

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Dec 16, 2019

Black Friday may seem like an increasingly distant memory, but we’re still seeing some interesting statistics coming out around shopping behaviour during the event that was a week later this year than in 2018. 

And it seems that the number of Black Friday weekend cross-border purchases soared by 545% compared to November’s first weekend. The sales reached a three-week peak late in the month but had started to climb earlier in the month ahead of the main shopping period as retailers started promotions in advance of the day itself.

That’s according to the latest data from cross-border e-commerce solutions provider, Global-e. It tracked international orders taken by UK retailers across 200+ international markets and found the growth in orders was “significantly greater than in 2018”.

In fact, compared to the weekend before, Black Friday weekend saw growth of 241%, while in November 2018, that growth had been 130%.

The company also said that the “85% year-on-year uplift around the Black Friday weekend demonstrates the increased globalisation of this shopping peak, as shoppers throughout the world have been lured by the shopping phenomenon”.

As mentioned, while Black Friday was late this year, coming on November 29, the rest of the month also saw its impact and cross-border sales surged 150% from November 8 to 11, compared to the week before.

UK retailers saw big interest from Singapore (sales up 861% on Black Friday itself compared to an average of the other Fridays in November), Denmark (+815%) and Ireland (+641%).