Numerator has released new omnichannel purchase, share and consumer sentiment data in advance of Cyber Weekend 2021. The data indicates that for the first time, more than half of U.S. consumers will shop online between Thanksgiving Thursday and Cyber Monday, with online retail sales approaching one-third of all Cyber Weekend sales.  

“Traditional performance tracking events like Black Friday have lacked both an omnichannel lens and consumer context while taking weeks to report – all of which hinder the ability of brands and retailers to react with speed and intelligence,” says Eric Belcher, chief executive officer, Numerator.  

Online household penetration for Cyber Weekend has been closing in on the 50% threshold. Last year, 47% of households shopped online during Cyber Weekend, up from 42% in 2019 and 38% in 2018. 

Amazon is poised to capture more than half of all Cyber Weekend dollars spent online. On Cyber Weekend 2020, Amazon accounted for 14% of all sales and 47.1% of online sales. By comparison, Walmart accounted for 10.8% of all sales and 8.1% of online sales and Target captured 4.2% of all sales, 5.2% of online sales. 

Millennials are likely to lead other generations in online shopping for Cyber Weekend 2021. More than one-third (36%) of this group’s Cyber Weekend spend was made online in 2020, the highest among all generations. 

Boomers+ will likely continue online share growth, fueled by lasting behavior shifts during the pandemic. This generation shows the largest growth in Cyber Weekend online share since 2018 (+10 points), surpassing Gen X on Cyber Weekend 2020.  

A recent holiday intentions survey of 1,000+ consumers shows additional Cyber Weekend insights around regional trends, vaccination impacts and spending intentions. Midwestern consumers are the most likely to shop on Black Friday (105). Southern and western consumers are more likely to shop on Saturday and Sunday of Cyber Weekend than other consumers. Southern consumers are the most likely group to shop the Saturday after Thanksgiving (106) and western consumers on the Sunday after Thanksgiving (107). Northeastern consumers are the most likely to shop on Cyber Monday (105). This group is also the least likely to shop all other days of Cyber Weekend: Thanksgiving Day (94), Black Friday (96), Saturday after Thanksgiving (89) and Sunday after Thanksgiving (82). Cyber Monday is poised to capture fewer western consumers (92), compared to consumers in other regions.  

More unvaccinated consumers plan to shop in-store than vaccinated consumers; 27% of unvaccinated consumers say they will shop primarily or exclusively in-store over Cyber Weekend, compared to 19% of vaccinated shoppers. More vaccinated consumers plan to shop online than unvaccinated consumers. Half of vaccinated shoppers (50%) say they will shop primarily or exclusively online this year, compared to 39% of unvaccinated shoppers. 

Nearly half (45%) of consumers expect to complete all or most of their holiday shopping over Cyber Weekend while 9% plan to complete all their holiday shopping during this time. 

The number of consumers who plan to spend more this year is double that of those who plan to spend less. Almost 1 in 4 consumers (24%) say they plan to spend more this Cyber Weekend than in previous years, while 12% say they will spend less.  

The Numerator 2021 Q4 Holiday Survey was fielded in September 2021 to 1,019 consumers. Numerator TruView data covers the five-day period from Thanksgiving Thursday through Cyber Monday and includes all categories across Online, FMCG, Apparel and Specialty Channels.