Boomerang Commerce Data Reveals Black Friday and Cyber Monday Discounts Are Minimal and Fleeting

Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Jet did not heavily discount most popular products and prices actually increased in key categories after Black Friday, cementing perception that the two celebrated shopping days are waning in importance

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--()--This year marks the death of traditional Black Friday and Cyber Monday door busters, according to exclusive research from Boomerang Commerce. Boomerang Commerce, who helps omni-channel retailers combine big data and analytics for smarter decisions on price and assortment, aggregated and analyzed online price discounts and price perception for 1,000 popular products sold by Walmart, Target, Amazon and Jet. The report covered five major holiday categories: toys, housewares, consumer electronics, health and beauty as well as video games & movies. The report shows how each retailer shifted discounts and moved relative prices over the course of 10 days as they sought to win customers and compete against each other on the days leading up to Black Friday, throughout Black Friday weekend and Cyber Monday.

Key findings observed on the products monitored by Boomerang Commerce were as follows:

  • Black Friday and Cyber Monday prices were nothing special. Retailers did not significantly discount the vast majority of popular products.
  • Amazon’s prices dropped on Thanksgiving Day and then continued to increase through Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
  • Walmart’s and Target’s prices dropped prior to Thanksgiving, remained lower during early Black Friday and then increased later that day, surpassing pre-Black Friday prices.

What’s more, the average offer prices of products sold by these major retailers remained remarkably stable during the period. For Amazon, the average discount across prices was 2.5% or less for the entire shopping period. For Walmart, the average discount was 3.6% or less. Target showed the deepest discounts on average price across items, with 6.8% or less from the day before Thanksgiving through the day after Black Friday. The lack of downward movement on average prices suggests that, aside from a handful of big discounts, the retailers did not significant discount the vast majority of their products.

“Shoppers are no longer seeing the same depth and variety of discounts,” says Guru Hariharan, CEO and founder of Boomerang. “Our data proves this is actually the case –Black Friday and Cyber Monday no longer offer blockbuster discounts to consumers.”

Leveraging insights from Boomerang Commerce’s massive big data and proprietary price perception analysis, Boomerang illuminated previously hidden competition dynamics that took place in various categories:

  • In the Toys category, Target competed the most closely with Amazon. In particular post Black Friday Target became very competitive and undercut Amazon through Cyber Monday. In contrast, Walmart’s prices remained the highest with an average of 12% higher than Amazon throughout the entire period and never dropped deep to match Amazon’s aggressive prices.
  • In Housewares, Target’s prices stayed in close range (within 5%) of Amazon’s and dropped below Amazon before Cyber Monday. In contrast Walmart’s prices never closed the PPI gap with Amazon and actually increased on Cyber Monday ending the day with 16% higher than Amazon.
  • In Health & Beauty, Walmart’s prices remained the highest throughout the entire period, while Target’s prices became very competitive (within 3%) on Black Friday against Amazon and then returned to high prices post Black Friday.
  • In Video Games & Movies, Walmart and Target undercut Amazon’s prices on Thanksgiving Day and continued to do so throughout Black Friday. After Black Friday Target’s prices increased above Amazon’s while Walmart stayed highly competitive with 6% below Amazon throughout Cyber Monday.

Despite the recorded disparities in pricing, for the most part these differences were 10% or less of the total PPI average. This slim disparity indicated that the retailers, in general, were not aggressively discounting against each other. Additionally, Amazon, Walmart and Target had different levels of price dynamism on Cyber Monday and Black Friday. Target held prices steady throughout both days on 91% of products and Walmart kept steady prices on 70% of the products analyzed. Amazon held steady prices only on 39% of the products. This indicates that Amazon continues to dynamically price products even on important shopping days.

About Boomerang Commerce

Seven of Internet Retailer’s Top 50 retailers rely on Boomerang Commerce’s Retail Solutions Suite, which delivers actionable decision recommendations that enable retailers to make smarter pricing, assortment, and competitive decisions to boost profits at scale. Founded in 2012 and built by a team from Amazon, McKinsey, MIT and Stanford, Boomerang applies machine learning and big data analytics to massive data quantities across digital and brick-and-mortar channels, and it derives strategic insights and actionable business recommendations to transform business decision makers into retail ninjas. For more detail, please visit www.boomerangcommerce.com.

All product and company names herein are trademarks of their registered owners.

Contacts

Boomerang Commerce
Corinna Krueger, 510-219-3634
corinna@boomerangcommerce.com
or
Boca Communications
Brigit Valencia
Brigit@bocacommunications.com

Release Summary

Boomerang Commerce announces key findings from study of Black Friday & Cyber Monday retail price and discount behavior

Contacts

Boomerang Commerce
Corinna Krueger, 510-219-3634
corinna@boomerangcommerce.com
or
Boca Communications
Brigit Valencia
Brigit@bocacommunications.com