Shopify merchants achieved record-breaking success with $11.5 billion in sales during the 2024 Black Friday-Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend. This represents a 24% increase over last year and highlights the growing influence of small and medium businesses in the global holiday shopping landscape.
The four-day shopping period, which ran from the beginning of Friday in New Zealand to the end of Monday in California, saw more than 76 million consumers around the world shop from Shopify-powered brands. At its peak, sales reached $4.6 million per minute at 12:01 a.m. EST on Black Friday.
Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify, highlighted the impact of the platform, saying, “Shopify is transforming Black Friday weekend. The ‘door-knocking’ shopping moment, once dominated by legacy players, is now a global trade event involving businesses of all sizes.”
Performance Differences
- Global Sales: With a gross merchandise volume (GMV) of $11.5 billion.
- Don’t reach the consumer: More than 76 million buyers worldwide.
- Entrepreneurship development: More than 16,500 entrepreneurs made their first sale.
- Note the sale days: 67,000 merchants experienced the highest sales day.
- Best Product Categories: Clothing tops, cosmetics, fitness and nutrition, pants and activewear.
- Average Cart Price: $108.56 globally ($109.70 on a constant currency basis).
- Boundary Orders: Represents 16% of all transactions.
- Store Payment Increase: 58% YoY increase in sales through Shop Pay.
The top performing countries during the event included the US, UK, Australia, Canada and Germany. Cities such as Los Angeles, New York and London led the way in terms of sales.
Technology Infrastructure Under Pressure
Shopify’s strong technical infrastructure was instrumental in ensuring seamless operations throughout the event. Over the weekend the platform ran:
- 57.3 petabytes of data processed.
- 1.19 trillion external requests and 10.5 trillion database queries.
- A peak 284 million external requests per minute and 12 terabytes of data per minute On Black Friday.
Shopify emphasized the reliability of its systems, which managed unprecedented demand without disruption. “Black Friday-Cyber Monday wasn’t just busy—it was a living demonstration of Shopify’s solid reliability and top-notch technological prowess,” the company said.
Consumer trends and spending concepts
Shopify revealed key consumer spending trends during BFCM:
- Average basket price reflected consumers’ willingness to spend on high-quality products.
- Cross-border orders, which accounted for 16% of total sales, highlighted the platform’s global reach.
- Top-selling product categories show strong interest in apparel, beauty and health-oriented products.