2020 Black Friday Wrap-Up - USA

Black Friday is predicted to top $10 billion in ecommerce sales this year - a 39% increase from from 2019*. In lieu of the physical shelf, manufacturers have to shift their focus onto optimising the digital shelf and ensure their products are prominently visible to shoppers at this peak time. 

Indeed, search performance is the most important way to drive traffic and sales online.  This weekend especially, manufacturers should focus on optimising returns for key shopper terms and aim to finish inthe top 10 of search rankings. as many shoppers will not scroll past this point. This is especially key, as most shoppers don’t scroll past the first 10 search results for any given term; the impact of jumping from 20th to 10th in search is an incredible 21% jump in traffic.

In this analysis, Edge by Ascential will be looking at the most popular search terms in several high-performing categories across various retailers to see which brands are set to catch shoppers’ eye first, maximising their potential sales.
 

Consumer Electronics

Winners (Greatest average share)

“Television” - Samsung
“Laptop” - HP
“Headphones” - Sony

Consumer Electronics are the most prominently promoted products on Black Friday, with Televisions, in particular, being associated with the day. Samsung won the biggest share across the retailers analysed, just ahead of TCL. It had the greatest share on Best Buy and most importantly Amazon, however, it only had a 10% share on Target where TCL secured a 50% share, including three of the top four results.

In Laptops, HP dominated search results with a 60% share on Best Buy and Target. Acer, HP and Microsoft each had a 30% share of the results on Amazon but Microsoft was best positioned as it had the top three results.

Sony just beat out Apple and Beats By Dre to the greatest share for “Headphones”. It had a 30% share on Amazon, Best Buy and Target but had no products return on Walmart, where Apple and Beats By Dre both garnered a 30% share. 

Toys

Winners (Greatest average share)

“Kids Toys” - Lego
“Board Games” - Hasbro
“Card Games” - Mattel

Many shoppers will be using the Cyber 5 weekend to purchase Christmas gifts, so Toys are guaranteed to be a popular area for shoppers. 

For the search term “Kids Toys”, There was large amount brand diversity with 23 brands occupying the 30 positions analysed. Lego technically had the greatest share at 40% all on Amazon while Osmo had a 30% share from Target alone.

For the term “Board Games”,  it is no surprise to see Hasbro at the top. It had the greatest share of search on all retailers' website sites, although its lowest percentage was on Amazon, where only three products returned and two of these placed ninth and tenth.

Mattel was the best-performer for “Card Games” with the largest share on Target and Walmart. However, it was Exploding Kittens that leveraged sponsored positions not only giving it the greatest share on Amazon but also the top two places in search.

Home Appliances

Winners (Greatest average share)

“Blender” - Ninja
“Coffee Machine” - Mr. Coffee
“Vacuum Cleaner” - Bissell and Shark

Ninja had the greatest share on Best Buy and Walmart, and also had the joint greatest share on Amazon. Next best-performer was Oster which had a 50% share of the Target results, including the top two positions

For “Coffee Maker”, it was Mr. Coffee that topped the charts. Its 40% share of results on Target was its best performance as it had 20% on each other retailer. There was no strong performer outside of this with many brands such as Black+Decker, Keurig and Hamilton Beach achieving 10-20% shares of each retailer's website.

Shark and Bissell led the way in Vacuum Cleaners performing strongly in different retailers. Bissell had a 50% share of the Amazon website, including second and third place. Shark on the other hand had a 40% share of both Target and Walmart but no results on Amazon.

DIY

Winners (Greatest average share)

“Drill” - DeWalt
“Power Tools” - Hart
“Leaf Blower” - Ryobi

DeWalt’s performance on Home Depot and Target, 40% and 50% share, meant it was the top performing brand. It also had a 20% share on Amazon but Avid beat it with 40% including the all important top three positions.

Hart had the greatest average share for “Power Tools”, solely down to its performance on Walmart (80%). No other brand had a large enough share across the other three retailers to compete but DeWalt came closest with 20% on Amazon and 30% on Home Depot.

Similarly to “Power Tools”, Ryobi was the top brand for “Leaf Blower” solely down to its 70% share on Home Depot. Hart again performed well on Walmart with 50% and importantly Black+Decker had the top four spots on Amazon.
 

Health & Beauty

Winners (Greatest average share)

“Curling Iron” - InfinitiPro (Conair)
“Hair Dryer” - Revlon
“Electric Shaver” - Philips

Conair dominated results for “Curling Iron” with its InfinitiPro brand coming out on top ahead of the Conair brands itself. Combined, both brands had a 40% share on Amazon, Target and Walmart. Outside of Conair, Hot Tools had a 40% on Target and Remington had a 40% share on Walmart.

Revlon beat Conair to the top spot for “Hair Dryer” boosted by a strong performance on Walmart (60% share). Conair had no products return on Amazon where Paul Mitchel had a 30% share but did not appear in the top four positions.

Philips accounted for half the returning products on Best Buy and Target and 40% on Amazon which included the top three search results. Braun closely followed in second with 40% of the top ten on Best Buy and Walmart.
 

Baby

Winners (Greatest average share)

“Baby Monitor” - VTech
“Car Seat” - Graco
“Stroller” - Graco

VTech’s performance on Target meant it had the greatest average share across the four retailers, ahead of Owlet. Vtech also had a 40% share on Best Buy ahead of Owlet’s 20%. Owlet and VTech both had one product on Amazon but Owlet’s placed first ahead of VTech’s third place.

Graco’s average share across the retailers for “Car Seat” was a giant 62.5%. It had a significantly larger share than any other brand on each retailers site, this included the first seven results on the Amazon website which should generate a strong sales performance.

Graco also won for the term “Stroller” but it was a much closer competition with Baby Jogger in a close second. Graco again performed strongly on Amazon, however, it didn’t on BuyBuyBaby where Baby Jogger picked up most of its share. Walmart was a different picture entirely with seven brands returning in the top ten and no one brand dominating.
 

We’ve seen who is in pole position to win this Black Friday but look out for our blog on Cyber Monday, where we analyse search trends to see which brands won the most prominent search rankings over the weekend and on Cyber Monday itself.

If you’d like to connect with one of our experts to discuss how you can optimise your holiday planning, fill out the form below.
 

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