Press Release

For immediate release

The Battle of Boxing Day: online winners and losers of this year’s sales weekend revealed

  • 35 major retailers saw web traffic increase 70% on average over Boxing Day
  • Superdry saw an increase of 116% in website visits while Ocado saw the biggest drop (17%)
  • However, website visits were 18% lower on average than Black Friday

    • 30 December, 2020, LONDON –

    With the majority of retail sales moving online this festive period due to Coronavirus, new research from the shopping comparison site, finder.com, analysed the website of 35 major retailers to reveal who saw the biggest rise, and decline, in web traffic over the Boxing Day weekend.

    From Saturday 26th to Monday 28th it was Superdry who saw the biggest percentage rise in traffic on their website. Compared to their average daily amount of users (for the 6 months between June and November), the number of daily visitors to the site was up a massive 115%.

    House of Fraser wasn’t far behind, with a doubling of daily traffic (113%), while Debenhams and JD Sports saw a 103% and 102% increase respectively.

    A few sites actually saw a reduction in web traffic over the Boxing Day weekend though. Online grocer Ocado experienced the biggest decline, of 17%, and perhaps surprisingly, Boohoo was second, with a 12% drop.

    The e-commerce giant, Amazon, saw the 3rd biggest decline in daily traffic. However, despite 11% fewer daily visits over the weekend, it was still a clear winner in terms of total numbers, with 9.4 million sessions.

    The second busiest site, eBay, had almost 5 million visits to the site over the weekend, while Argos was the third busiest site, receiving 1.9 million visits.

    Boxing Day web traffic lags behind Black Friday

    Before ‘Black Friday’ was invented, Boxing Day and January sales were undoubtedly the biggest sales event of the year. This no longer appears to be the case in terms of web traffic though. The average daily Boxing Day web traffic among the 35 retailers analysed fell 18% compared to the daily averages over the Black Friday weekend.

    The sites that saw a particular decline in traffic appear to be those with a younger audience. The daily site visits to Pretty Little Thing was down 65%, Boohoo traffic fell 51% while Topshop was down 48%.

    In fact, only 5 of the 35 retailers saw an increase in traffic last weekend compared to Black Friday. The biggest increase was experienced by Dunelm, up 17%, followed by River Island, 8%, and Next, 5%.

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    Methodology:
    Finder recorded and analysed online web traffic data from the traffic analytics company, SimilarWeb, over a range of dates throughout 2020.

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    Disclaimer

    The information in this release is accurate as of the date published, but rates, fees and other product features may have changed. Please see updated product information on finder.com's review pages for the current correct values.

    About finder.com

    finder.com is a personal finance website, which helps consumers compare products online so they can make better informed decisions. Consumers can visit the website to compare utilities, mortgages, credit cards, insurance products, shopping voucher codes, and so much more before choosing the option that best suits their needs.

    Best of all, finder.com is completely free to use. We’re not a bank or insurer, nor are we owned by one, and we are not a product issuer or a credit provider. We’re not affiliated with any one institution or outlet, so it’s genuine advice from a team of experts who care about helping you find better.

    finder.com launched in the UK in February 2017 and is privately owned and self-funded by two Australian entrepreneurs – Fred Schebesta and Frank Restuccia – who successfully grew finder.com.au to be Australia's most visited personal finance website (Source: Experian Hitwise).

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