Retail Week’s ranking of the UK’s busiest Black Friday sites reveals another reserved year for what was once one of the busiest weekends of retail’s promotional calendar
Retailers were anticipating an onslaught of savvier shoppers on the hunt for a pre-Christmas bargain, but far fewer consumers engaged with the event online and 188 of the UK’s biggest retailers saw an average 12.07% decrease in site visitors.
This drop is on top of the already subdued online Black Friday of 2021, as shoppers exiting lockdowns made a return to in-person shopping, a trend that has endured for another year.
All retailers in the top 10 suffered a decline and each of the top three comfortably maintained their positions on the podium.
In its second consecutive year of weakened traffic, Amazon maintained its comfortable lead with 53.9 million visitors over the four days across Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The ecommerce giant’s 12% dip works out as 7.4 million fewer visits – a loss that may have been deepened by its early Prime sale, which took place five weeks before.
eBay also took a 12% hit, albeit from a lower base, with 31.5 million visits this year against 35.8 million last year. Argos was the only one of the three to see a single-digit drop, down 5.4% to 13.5 million.
The winner of the weekend was Dunelm, which packed in an extra 518,000 visits across the four days, a 14% lift on last year. The homeware retailer’s offers on furniture caught the interest of shoppers looking to spend sensibly with the opportunity to pick up cheaper, considered purchases. Whereas electronics retailers, which were once the stars of the show, struggled online again with a significant year-on-year shrink for the category.
In fashion, Asos tumbled down the rankings by two places with an 18.5% drop in visits to 6.1 million, which allowed Next to climb despite its underwhelming 8.1% drop in traffic.
In spite of its share of scandals this year, Shein raked in double-digit traffic growth, up 26% to 2.5 million visits. The Chinese fast-fashion etailer’s Black Friday weekend offensive was a roaring success, allowing it to overtake H&M and secure its lead over Zara for another year.
Fenwick enjoyed the highest traffic growth in percentage terms of all 188 retailers analysed, up 73% year on year to 543,000 visits.
The stellar growth sent it up the ranking by a whopping 38 places and into the top 100 at 89. Its 30% off promotion across the weekend meant it was the only department store in the analysis to achieve any traffic growth, overtaking Harrods in the process.
Flourish:
Other strong performers include accessible luxury brands like sportswear retailer Lululemon and beauty specialists Space NK, which managed 51% and 61% spikes in traffic respectively.
But the biggest fallers list tells the tale of a turbulent 2022 for retail, with traffic plummeting for retailers undergoing acquisitions, takeovers, tie-ups, name changes and administrations throughout the year with Made.com, FeelUnique.com and Burton falling hardest.
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