Irish consumers spent €4,500 a minute on clothing during Black Friday last year, a 364% increase in spend compared to a normal day, new AIB data has revealed.
In Galway, people spend 351% more on clothing from online stores during Black Friday compared to the average of all days between 1 October and 31 December.
Galway consumers also buy more electrical goods online during Black Friday – 437% more than on a normal day.
85,000 transactions were carried out clothing websites on Black Friday last year, which is approximately one transaction every second.
On a normal day, consumers buying clothes online conducted just under 20,000 online transactions.
AIB looked at online consumer spending for Black Friday 2019 which revealed that:
- Clothing ranks first for consumer spend on Black Friday followed by electrical goods, hardware, health and beauty and jewellery.
- €2,200 was spent a minute online by consumers buying electronics on Black Friday, a 361% increase in spend compared with a normal shopping day*.
- Consumers spent an average of €75 per clothing transaction, €119 on electronics, €204 on hardware, €77 on health and beauty and €137 per jewellery transaction on Black Friday.
- The busiest time for online shopping on Black Friday is between 10am and 11am, with the second busiest time being between 9pm and 10pm – almost four transactions are happening every second during these peak hours. The busiest time for men shopping online is 10pm on Black Friday, while women are more likely to be shopping online at 10am.
- While Cyber Monday is pitched as the major online shopping day, Black Friday still outperforms it in terms of online sales, with 50% more spent during Black Friday than on Cyber Monday.
“This year’s Black Friday will be like no other as many Irish businesses will remain closed as a result of the level five restrictions which are currently in place,” said Rachel Naughton, Head of SME at AIB.
“Our data shows that consumers are spending large amounts of money online every minute of the day during Black Friday, which presents Irish businesses with a unique opportunity during this difficult period.
“We have seen from working with, and supporting our business customers over the past number of months that many – for the first time – are adapting to sell online.
“Where possible this Black Friday we ask customers to support their local business, helping these businesses through this difficult period.
“As more people will be shopping online this Black Friday we’re encouraging them to be vigilant as there is always an increase in phishing emails at this time of year, with an estimated 50 million global fraud attempts expected to be attempted this holiday season.”
