The shift of Amazon’s Prime Day event from July to October kickstarted this year’s peak Q4 shopping season. A mid-October Prime Day (10/13 - 10/14) was the ideal time for affiliate marketers to create their own promotions to generate early holiday purchasing that could spread out holiday fulfillment and shipping across a longer period. Consumers used the October timing to begin their holiday purchases ahead of typical trends and this early start has contributed to higher YOY growth outside of typical peak shopping periods.

Sales were unusually strong before Black Friday and Cyber Monday with sales in the first 25 days of November showing all-time high YOY growth, driven by strong sales performance in the sports & fitness, home & garden, and gifts & flowers categories. Predictably, purchasing behavior slowed in late October and early November leading up to and following the US presidential election. Concerns about shipping delays and fulfillment coalesced to create a peak shopping period where past ideas about when to release sales promotions and deals were tossed out the window.

Despite the early release of Black Friday deals, shoppers were not deterred from showing up for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which were again the two largest shopping days of the year in both the network and ecommerce overall. In the network, Black Friday’s retail sales growth of 17% exceeded Cyber Monday, which declined 3% YOY. Strong shopping volume before Cyber Monday, specifically sales volume of the week of November 15 likely contributed to Cyber Monday’s YOY decline. Sports equipment and apparel were some of the most popular items purchased as a result of Black Friday promotions, reflecting consumer’s ongoing interest in items that support one of the few things people feel they can control in their lives, namely their personal health and fitness.

Online shopping in the days leading up to December 25 stayed strong, despite the likelihood that physical gifts would not arrive for Christmas Day due to package volumes that exceeded most carriers’ delivery capacities. In a typical year, late-season shoppers normally shift to e-gifts such as food clubs, wine clubs, magazine subscriptions, and streaming services. This year these purchase were joined by a far greater number of physical purchases, facilitated by ‘buy online, pick up in store’ options and, likely, a healthy amount of self-gifting purchasing that could just as easily be delivered post-holiday.

2020 will be remembered for many things both good and not so good. For digital marketers it will stand out as a year of unprecedented progress and change. According to eMarketer, COVID-19 accelerated the use of online channels by almost two years while also fueling consumers’ rapid adoption of contactless shopping and payments. Within the affiliate channel, we saw many companies within only a few weeks put into action recruitment and media campaigns that normally would have taken months. Being able to respond quickly to changing needs and behaviors and having a knowledge of consumer trends set affiliate marketers up to perform well through the peak shopping season. Both shoppers and the channel have been irrevocably changed by COVID-19 in significant ways.