It has been a week since the world’s most infamous retail holiday. With in-store shopping making a welcomed return, there was little doubt that this year would be as busy as the one before.
In the week leading up to this year's Black Friday, we at nShift made some predictions on the number of packages we expected to be delivered and returned. Based on billions of packages processed over the last three years, our data team was able to forecast this year's demand. Naturally, we were curious to see if our predictions reflected the outcomes.
Now, the results are in.
Black Friday Tops Last Year
Aligning with our predictions, this year we saw package orders on the day of Black Friday reach a new high. Comparing last year’s data with 2021, nShift witnessed a 2.2% increase, taking the total number of packages ordered during the 24-hour window to over 1million.
Contributing to the fruitful season, this year’s Black Week orders levelled out at 5.5million, remaining consistent with 2020.
Lars Pedersen, CEO of nShift explains:
“We are delighted to have witnessed, and helped facilitate, this year’s rise in packages ordered on Black Friday. We knew that this year would be tough to predict given the unprecedented nature of the challenges that retailers, shippers, and distributors have faced in the build-up to the retail holiday. Ultimately, it is extremely positive to see the figures not only match that of 2020, bu
t also reach new heights. These statistics should give retailers huge confidence and optimism going into Christmas and the new year.”
Black Friday Returns Reach 148,000
After crunching the data on packages returned, nShift found evidence of retailers’ continued commitment to making the reverse ecommerce process easier. On the day of Black Friday 2021, a total of 148,000 returns were submitted by European customers.
As for Black Week, our results showed that this year there were 52,000 fewer returns actioned compared to 2020. Lars adds:
“Returns are a massively important part of Black Friday, and it is positive to see that customers are utilizing the increasingly reliable and convenient returns processes provided by retailers through our software. We are yet to see the results for the number of returns issued during the 30 days following Black Friday, however, we predict that we could see as many as two million parcels returned during this time.”
As Europe's largest provider of cloud delivery management solutions, we know how beneficial forecasting can be in helping businesses prepare for the big retail holidays. We also know that being able to provide some indication of customer habits can be extremely valuable to our community, so stay tuned for our Europe-focused Christmas Predictions ahead of December 25th!
