A new black swept into town this weekend at Italian fashion retailer Yoox Group S.p.A.—and it wasn’t in the form of a chic cocktail dress or slimming leggings.
Yoox.com, No.78 in the Internet Retailer Europe 500 and No. 184 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, booked all-time record-breaking sales on Black Friday, the major shopping day that falls on the day after Thanksgiving. And on Thanksgiving, Yoox also broke its record for a single day—until it was topped by Black Friday.
The retailer, which sells online across the globe, says shoppers placed an order every 3.5 seconds on Black Friday and that North America contributed the “lion’s share” of sales
Yoox also reports that for Black Friday:
- The United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and Russia were the fastest-growing countries in Europe.
- China was the strongest country in Asia in terms of sales, which increased nearly 400% on Black Friday compared with the same day a year earlier. In Hong Kong, sales more than doubled on Black Friday over the same day in 2013.
- In terms of sales by city, New York placed first on the day after Thanksgiving, followed by Moscow and Tokyo.
- 46% of traffic to Yoox sites came from mobile devices, and mobile sales grew 107% year over year.
- Shoes were the top–
- The highest ticket for a single order from a desktop was a $20,000 purchase of Saint Laurent handbags headed to Colorado, while the highest from an Apple Inc. iPhone was a $7,200 Dolce&Gabbana outfit shipping to California.
The retailer also notes that its web site and customer service teams handled the surge well. The average site availability across all Yoox sites was above 99.9% for the full 24-hour period on Black Friday, Yoox says, and the average response time was less than two seconds. Additionally, customer service agents answered 90% of calls within 20 seconds and managed 5,400 calls in 10 languages across all time zones.