When you search through black friday deals, it's likely you've been doing it on mobile or desktop over the past few years, shopping trends have massively skewed towards buying items online rather than in person, as it's easier to shop on the go, or when you're bored in a meeting.
In addition, mobile shopping is gradually gaining momentum on desktop browsing, and now new data has come out that explores how people spend their money online over Black Friday.
This data comes from Adobe analytics, who hosted a report on holiday shopping, including Black Friday, cyber monday and Christmas. Included are several statistics on online shopping, a comparison of mobile and desktop purchases, and these can help you decide how to shop for the Black Friday season.
You use your PC for big purchases Black Friday
One of the most notable stats from Adobe's report explored which platform you use to make large or small purchases, and the result is revealing. Adobe found that people were walking on 'wagon' desktops that were 28% more expensive than phones.
Buy 'wagons', we mean the whole cart when you reach the checkout, and it's usually people buying more expensive products on the table, with phones reserved for cheaper items.
The gap between purchase sizes, according to Adobe, is because shopping on your computer makes it much easier to do research around your product – for example, you can buy new shirts on your phone because you only need to see a picture to know how good they are for you, but if you're looking to buy a new TV, it's worth doing more research to see if it's worth a lot of your hard-earned money.
If you're in the latter camp and you're looking to make a big purchase that you've researched, you're in the right place. The former gives expert commentary on all the best product in any tech category, so search around our site to explore the best laptop, smartphone, TV, game console, speakers or more.
Another reason why people might prefer a computer to a desktop is because Adobe found that people find desktop checkout easier to use than mobile devices, which encourages people to hunt down the best deals on mobile but actually make a purchase without leaving from mouse and keyboard.
New Black Friday spending on phones
At the moment, approximately 54% of online sales are on the desktop compared to 38% on the smartphone (and the rest on the tablet) according to Adobe, but statistics show that this could change very soon.
The report says that all new spending in 2019, compared to 2018, three-quarters of it will be done on smartphones. That's $14 billion of the roughly $19 billion in new money spent that didn't change Hands' significant amount last year.
Please note that we call expenses, not purchases. This is because only half of the new purchases will be made from phones. What does it mean? Well, it looks like people will be making a few more purchases, but spending a lot more money, assuming they will be more expensive products.
So while traditionally people have used computers to make large purchases, this could be a change in 2019.
People are more efficient shopping by phone
Checking for Black Friday deals on your phone has one advantage that might make it preferable for you – according to Adobe statistics, it will take you much less time on your phone to find that great Black Friday deals compared to on your desktop (and, of course, in real life too).
When you check for Black Friday deals, you will spend 11% less time compared to 2016 and you will visit 16% fewer different pages. Despite this, the cost-per-minute is now as much as 63% higher.
Obviously websites have found ways to be more efficient when it comes to marketing their discounted products by putting them front and center so people can see them better. Also, with more site creation mobile user interfaces and smartphones becoming more ingrained in our culture, it's likely it's just easier to navigate the web and on your phone.
This is different news for social networks, if only because while there are a huge number of social media pages to follow for suggestions, and people will click on the links that are posted, they usually don't spend money as a result. Approximately 11% of page visits to an offer come from a social media post, which is a triple that of 2016, however only about 4% of the actual revenue comes from these posts.
It's understandable that people aren't influenced by influencers as much as we believe, especially given that 57% of people admitted they'd get inspiration to buy from social media, but only 20% actually made a purchase based on it. This influence of culture is a bit of a fad then? For Black Fridays, at least.
In the next few years, phone spending could trump desktop spending – in fact, Adobe estimates it could happen by Christmas 2019 – and with it, our habits are changing too. It's worth checking out in study in full then, so you can fully understand how your platform of choice is pushing you to navigate differently.
- Black Friday vs Cyber Monday: What's the difference?