2022 Online Sales Trends: Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday

Last week, the IndieCommerce team reported on current and projected online sales trends in the lead-up to this year’s holiday season. This week, we’re taking a look at how sales panned out during this year’s Thanksgiving weekend.

For the four holiday shopping days following Thanksgiving 2022 (blue graph below), we saw online sales that are still 115.87% above pre-COVID 2019 levels (orange graph below). Cyber Monday sales this year were particularly strong compared to the previous three days. 

Other notable stats for those four days include:

• The e-commerce conversion rate (the percentage of online customers who complete a purchase online) was 3.36% for the four days, compared to 2.96% for the same four-day period in 2019. A higher percentage of online visitors to IndieCommerce and IndieLite websites in 2022 completed purchases.
• The number of unique visitors to IndieCommerce and IndieLite websites was up 71.79% during those four days when compared to the same period in 2019.
• The average amount paid for an online purchase was up 9.25% when compared to the same four- day period in pre-COVID 2019.

Note: The graphs in the chart above have been adjusted so that the days of the week align for 2019 & 2022.

This highly elevated holiday sales volume should continue through December 16, and then begin to slowly decline as shipping deadlines impact online purchases. Many stores can extend elevated online sales volume by offering in-store pickup of online orders. 

Although post-Thanksgiving holiday sales were significantly higher than we saw during pre-COVID 2019, they were also about 32% lower than the same four-day period in 2021. With many stores now experiencing increased in-store shopping once again, the post-COVID decline in online sales volume may just be bookstore customers’ purchase preferences shifting once more. 

We hope the combination of your in-store and online sales result in a prosperous 2022 holiday shopping season for you and your store.