Did Brits actually bag the best bargains on Black Friday?

How savvy were shoppers on Black Friday?

Black Friday discounts seem to start earlier and stay longer every year, this year maybe earlier than ever due to the UK's many supply chain issues. After last year’s record-breaking sales with shops closed all around the UK, how did Black Friday 2021 do? What were the most popular products? Where were the best discounts found? PriceRunner’s analysis reveals all.

Black Friday came and went once again, with Brits projected to spend up to 9.15 billion pounds over the four day Black Friday to Cyber Monday period – which is up 15.1% on the 7.95 billion pounds taken in 2020 and up 6.8% on the 8.57 billion pounds taken in 2019, according to industry experts.

This increase in shoppers was largely seen on PriceRunner’s website, who saw an increase in number of shoppers on their site by 71% on Black Friday, compared to the day before (measured in number of clicks on products their site).

I was frankly quite surprised to see so many shoppers on our site and app this time around, considering the UK was in lockdown last Black Friday and with retailers starting their discounts earlier than ever due to supply chain issues. This shows that there is still an apetite for Black Friday and our work to guide consumers to better and smarter choices is more important than ever" said Christine Gouldthorp, Consumer Expert at PriceRunner.

What were the most popular products on Black Friday?

Analysing more than 2.2 million products on their site, PriceRunner was able to reveal the most popular products and product categories on Black Friday this year. Their analysis shows that the most purchased products were as usual dominated by tech categories:

The most shopped product categories on Black Friday were not as overwhelmingly tech focused, although some of the usual suspects topped the list, such as TV's, mobile phones, tablets and wearables:

Did shoppers bag the best bargains?

Taking a look at the biggest price drops on Black Friday, PriceRunner has been analysing prices of the 1000 most popular products from the UK’s 50 largest retailers since August this year, finding that the biggest average price drops could be found in the following product categories:

This means that shoppers were great at snapping up bargains within tech, but other categories with large price drops that were missed were found in cosmetics, PlayStation 5 Games, hair stylers, media players and Xbox One Games. 

To find the best Black Friday & Cyber Monday bargains that are still live, head over to our Black Friday discounts page now.