Future : Celebrates a Surge in Sales Following Most Successful Black Friday Yet

Global specialist media platform Future plc is celebrating a very successful Black Friday and Cyber Monday period*, where they drove 250,000 transactions, generating over £23m in retail sales for their partners. Over the Black Friday period Future's market-leading sites including T3, TechRadar and PC Gamer, drove the sale of 17 products every minutes on average.

Over the course of the period, Future's sites helped their retail partners sell an estimated £4.1m worth of phone and service contracts. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given its first big price drop, the Nintendo Switch proved to be the most covetable purchase this year amongst Future's audience. 7000 readers trusted Future's advice on the best deals, and went on to buy a Switch; that's more than 21 bought every hour by users who came from Future sites. 4K TVs weren't as popular as originally predicted but rather games consoles and mobile phones triumphed the deals this year, with more than 8 Playstation VRs and 7 Galaxy S8s sold every hour. iPads, Playstation 4's and connected home devices such as Amazon Echo, Sonos, and Google Home also weren't far behind on the popularity scale.

In the face of increased competition and ever-more insightful shoppers, Future brands proved their superior ability to attract users with a combination of market-leading SEO, expert editorial content and real-time price comparison. As a result, Future plc saw a 45% YoY growth in eCommerce revenue over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period.

Matthew Smith, Head of eCommerce at Future plc says,

''Black Friday is the most important time of the year for Future's eCommerce business. We faced more challenges than ever this year, but in spite of this, we significantly increased our audience in both the UK and US. This drove a higher volume of sales, despite changing retail strategies and greater consumer awareness. This is a testament to how eCommerce has become ingrained in our business, with editorial, commercial and product teams working together to serve our audience the best products, at the best prices and for the highest possible return..'

The new look T3 saw a 50% rise in YoY revenue, thanks to the launch of the leaner website that has proved to be easier to navigate and better at taking users through the purchase funnel. Impressively, TechRadar, which had a very impressive Black Friday in 2016, was also up YoY, driving over 170,000 transactions over the Black Friday period, equating to over 166 transactions every hour and a 36% increase in revenue.

Global-Editor-in-Chief for eCommerce, James Rivington tells us:

'Around the Black Friday period we always see a huge spike in the number of people looking for buying advice - they want to know what to buy and where to find the cheapest prices.

This year, through our contacts in the retail industry and detailed understanding of how audience behaviour changes during periods of peak discounting, our extensive team of journalists were readily prepared for retailers' strategy over the cyber weekend and how their strategy would change audience behaviour. This meant we were best-placed to deliver amazing content for our readers who not only value our efforts but also trust our buying advice'.

*Future plc measures the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period over a 10 day span from Monday 20th November - Wednesday 29th November.