Commenting on their Black Friday performance, Amazon have said that worldwide, the shopping weekend was its biggest ever, with customers around the world purchasing hundreds of millions of products between the Thursday and Cyber Monday.
This was a record-breaking holiday shopping weekend for Amazon. Customers shopped millions of deals this weekend and we have many more amazing deals to come. Thank you to our customers for choosing to shop on Amazon, and to our employees and selling partners around the world who are delivering for customers every day.
– Doug Herrington, CEO, WW Amazon Stores
However, somewhat unusually, Amazon in the UK have been relatively quite regarding Black Friday performance with no UK specific post-Black Friday press release – and that’s unusual compared to previous years. The lack of a UK specific release might suggest that Amazon growth in the UK has slowed due to the cost of living crisis and is no longer seeing record breaking growth.
We did ask Amazon if they were releasing numbers o their Black Friday performance and they revealed that:
- Top selling categories across Black Friday in the UK, included Skin Care, Makeup, Games & Puzzles, and Pet Food
- Best-selling items in the UK include Echo Dot (5th Gen) and Fire TV Stick 4K Max, as well as Ring Video Doorbell
- Other best sellers include Oral-B Pro 3 Electric Toothbrush, Vera Wang Fragrance, Kraken Black Spiced Rum, Xbox Series S, Celebrations Chocolate Bulk Box, Felix Cat Food, and Real Techniques Makeup Brush Set
We may of course be mis-interpreting Amazon’s relative silence on their Black Friday performance in the UK and what remains important is not their sales in terms of record breaking growth, but if they are maintaining sales velocity for retailers selling in the UK Amazon store. It’s also fair to consider that sales have increasing been spread over a much longer period than in the past meaning Black Friday is now more of a month than a day or weekend.
What was your business’ Black Friday performance on Amazon and in general compared to previous years? Have the sales been as robust as in previous years? Have you seen a shift based on the price point of the goods you have on offer? Will Christmas be the normal peak for retailers or is 2022 going to turn out to be a bust?
