By fulfilmentcrowd For many retailers, peak sales account for up to 32% of annual revenue. Taking this into account, we have taken the time to share insights with you on order volumes during the peak trading season, including Black Friday weekend, pre-Christmas peak, and post-Christmas sales. Lee Thompson, CEO at fulfilmentcrowd, said: In 2024, online Black Friday sales in the UK reached £1.12 billion.* Our data shows that daily order averages increased by 42% over Black Friday weekend, when compared to the daily average across the wider peak months [between 1st November and 31st January]. 

fulfilmentcrowds Lee Thompson

According to fulfilmentcrowd research, here are the busiest days for peak orders (1 Nov-31 Jan) in order:

1. Monday 2nd December (Cyber Monday)
2. Monday 16th December
3. Monday 9th December
4. Tuesday 3rd December
5. Monday 30th December
6. Monday 20th January (Blue Monday)
7. Tuesday 25th November
8. Monday 6th January
9. Monday 13th January
10. Monday 27th January

Remarkably, Black Friday came in at position #11, narrowly missing out on the top ten. Cyber Sunday came in at position #35, and Cyber Saturday came in at position #75, showing that while Black Friday weekend kicks off festive spending, the lead up to Christmas sees most orders during Peak.

Here are the busiest days during Black Friday weekend for order volumes:

• Black Friday - 30% of all weekend sales
• Cyber Saturday - 8.5% of all weekend sales
• Cyber Sunday - 19.5% of all weekend sales
• Cyber Monday - 42% of all weekend sales

Again, this highlights how Cyber Monday brought in the most orders for many retailers during this period, 12 percentage points higher than Black Friday!

Here are the week-on-week increase in orders during Black Friday weekend:

• Black Friday - +56.6%
• Cyber Saturday - +659% (due to order volumes the week prior being particularly low)
• Cyber Sunday - +45.3%
• Cyber Monday - +35.6%

Thompson added: Our data also shows that the busiest day of UK peak trading wasnt Black Friday itself, but Cyber Monday, showing that UK shoppers delayed big purchases until the final moment of the BF weekend. Plus, it was Cyber Saturday that saw the largest week-on-week order increase (+659%) of the four BF weekend dates.