New technologies are ratcheting up consumer expectations of their e-commerce experiences. For example, China’s Singles Day has taken the excitement to new levels, with major retailers and brands hiring major global stars as spokespeople, streaming exclusive live video or interactive events. And the effort has paid off, with November 11, 2019 (the last Singles Day) yielding a whopping 58 billion dollars in a 24-hour period, dwarfing the US-based Cyber-Five e-commerce holiday, which generated just 28 billion dollars just a few weeks later.

Savvy consumers know that shopping for bargains is a year-round endeavor. And e-commerce companies who have orchestrated major shopping events throughout the year, rather than relying on the be-all, end-all nature of the traditional Black Friday shopping period in the US, are finding ways to lure in revenue at typically lean times of year. What began as primarily American with the post-Thanksgiving holiday chaos of Black Friday has crept into not only a longer shopping period, extending across the entire weekend after Thanksgiving (and sometimes earlier), but has ballooned globally, with retailers worldwide latching onto the Black Friday sales theme to promote pre-holiday shopping. 

Black Friday came a week later than usual in 2019, which sent retailers into overdrive – launching into an early “Black Friday week” rather than relying on the traditional Black Friday itself as the kickoff date. Motivated in part by this unusual lateness in the calendar as well as the ongoing uncertainty around US tariff wars with China, which promise to make consumer electronics and toys -- big holiday sellers -- abnormally expensive this year, retailers wanted to get ahead of the challenges posed by offering an earlier, longer and steeper discount period. 

Despite a Chinese economic slowdown, ongoing tension between China and the US as the tariff and trade war drags on, and escalating Hong Kong unrest, there’s been no damper on another record-breaking Singles Day. You’d never guess that there was any change to consumer spending power or appetite at all.