France’s Answer To Black Friday Drives Increase In Mobile Traffic

In spring 2018, six French eCommerce brands launched their own riposte to Black Friday — the one-day retail extravaganza that kicks off the US holiday shopping season. More than 200 brands took part in the first ever Les French Days, a five-day event designed to boost sales during the post-winter/pre-summer sales lull. Building on the success of the first event, retailers decided to repeat the operation this fall, slashing prices on thousands of items between September 28 and October 1.

ContentSquare analyzed 68 million user sessions before and during this latest round of Les French Days, to understand the impact of the event on digital consumer behavior. We also compared these findings to our analysis of 29 million user sessions captured just before and during Black Friday 2017 — a record-breaking day for US eCommerce.

Impact of eCommerce sales events on mobile traffic

The majority of retail traffic during this latest iteration of Les French Days came from mobile, with the device accounting for 48% of all digital traffic from 09/28 to 10/01 — a 6% increase from the period immediately preceding the sales. This pushed desktop into second place, with traffic from the device dropping from 48% to 45%. Tablet traffic remained constant at 6% throughout the event.

While the increase to mobile traffic during Black Friday 2017 was noticeably smaller (only 2.44%), the trend does support the argument that sales campaigns encourage more on-the-go shopping. By streamlining their mobile UX, brands can capitalize on the sense of urgency generated by major seasonal sales campaigns.

Conversion rates spike during Black Friday sales events

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Black Friday and its new French sister event are a tonic for conversion rates. In 2017, Black Friday triggered an impressive 28.57% increase in mobile conversion rates and a 44.44% CVR increase on desktop. Not to be completely outdone, Les French Days led to a 19.15% conversion rate increase on desktop and more timid 6.5% boost to mobile CVR.

Seasonal sales events attract a more committed consumer, with reduced bounce rates observed across all devices. The biggest drop is attributed to Les French Days, which result in 9.56% fewer bounces on desktop.

Les French Days also get the medal for the highest increase in page views, with desktop users viewing on average 16.54% more pages than before the event. Mobile visitors view 12.56% more pages during the same period, proving that consumers on all devices are keen to engage with the new sales content. Black Friday saw its biggest page view increase on mobile, with users viewing 9.37% more pages during the weekend event. In fact, the only decrease observed when it comes to content consumption is a 4.09% drop in the average session time of mobile shoppers browsing les French deals.

Data shows that seasonal sales increase thrifty consumers’ willingness to engage with promotional content while on the go. During the sales periods, retailers have their customers’ attention — analyzing navigation patterns to pinpoint where users hesitate, or abandon their navigation is key to developing successful buyer journeys. Intuitive paths that get customers from point A to B in fewer screens, shorter forms and streamlined checkouts — there is much retailers can do to keep mobile users engaged all the way to conversion.

Look out for our Black Friday coverage!