Walmart's Black Friday online traffic surges

This year's Black Friday, American consumers did not flock to major retail stores like in previous years, and Walmart also encountered this situation this year.

According to data statistics agency Placer.ai, Walmart's physical store traffic on Black Friday this year was down about 5.3% compared to last year. Overall, traffic to all hypermarkets decreased. Placer.ai estimates that Black Friday traffic at Target and Lowe's fell by 2% and 18.6%, respectively, compared to last year.

But that doesn't mean fewer people are shopping at Walmart. A study by data platform SEMRUSH showed that global online searches for the term "Black Friday discounts" grew 246.6% this year , suggesting that more consumers may be choosing to look for discounted items online.

According to a recent survey conducted by CNBC, among major retailers, Walmart's online searches for Black Friday discounts are higher than other e-commerce platforms. According to Walmart, its Black Friday-related keyword searches have increased by 386% year-on-year.

In fact, this year's Black Friday is a good example of Walmart's omnichannel layout. The company has been trying to strike a balance between its traditional physical business and e-commerce business.

However, Walmart declined to comment on its offline and online sales performance during Black Friday.

It is reported that this year Walmart's investment in its online Black Friday promotion is full of sincerity, offering three days of online-only promotions around Thanksgiving.

Insiders revealed that Walmart has been trying to recreate the online sales "magic" it achieved in the early days of the epidemic, when most consumers began to turn to online shopping.

In the second quarter of 2020, Walmart's U.S. e-commerce sales increased by 97% year-on-year. This year, this growth has slowed down, and in the second quarter of 2022, Walmart's U.S. e-commerce sales increased by only 12% year-on-year.

To be sure, Black Friday still boosted Walmart’s store traffic , which grew 77.1% during Black Friday compared with the average daily traffic in the first three quarters of the year, according to Placer.ai.

Ethan Chernofsky, vice president of marketing at Placer.ai, said: "Even compared with 2021, when the epidemic was severe, the traffic to offline stores on Black Friday this year is still down across the board. These data show that the importance of Black Friday to consumers is continuing to decline."

It can be seen that American consumers seem to have gradually lost their enthusiasm for shopping in physical stores, which is good news for cross-border sellers. Consumers' reliance on online shopping will continue to boost online sellers' sales.

Walmart

Black Friday