Traffic to retail websites has increased, but purchase conversion rates have declined. We identified this trend based on data from 946 ecommerce companies using Yespo, which collectively send around 2.2 billion messages per month. We also analyzed shopper behavior from January to August 2026 and during Black Friday 2024–2025. Below, we explore what has changed and what retailers should consider when preparing for seasonal sales.

Yespo is an omnichannel CDP (customer data platform) that helps ecommerce companies and retailers personalize customer interactions, retain customers, and increase sales. The study covers 2024–2026. Some metrics are based on median values across companies, while others reflect data from the entire sample.

Average Order Value Is Rising While Purchase Conversion Rates Are Declining

In August 2026, average order value (AOV) increased by 18.6% compared to July. However, the number of orders was lower than at the beginning of the year: approximately 2.7 million in January versus 2.1 million in August.

The increase in AOV was not driven solely by the largest companies: even after excluding the top 1% of companies in the sample, AOV increased by 16.2%.

Traffic peaked in May at 188.7 million visits to retail websites, but the overall purchase conversion rate fell to its lowest point: 1.31%, compared to approximately 1.9% in January.

By the end of summer, conversion rates had partially recovered but had not returned to winter levels. The company median also declined, indicating that the drop was not limited to a few major players.

How Sales Changed Across Categories in August 2026

Sales trends varied significantly by product category: in August, some segments increased revenue, while others saw fewer orders. Here's how the metrics changed compared to July:

• Home & Garden: revenue +38%. The number of orders remained almost unchanged, while AOV increased by approximately one-third.
• Electronics: revenue +28%. Orders increased by almost 9%, and AOV by 17%.
• Marketplaces: orders decreased by 27%. Higher AOV did not offset the decline, and revenue fell by approximately 17%.
• Books and Kids' Products: orders decreased by 13–15%.

An increase in AOV does not mean shoppers are buying more products. It may be influenced by rising prices or changes in purchasing behavior, such as choosing more expensive products.

To understand why the number of orders is declining, businesses need to determine whether there are fewer buyers or existing customers are purchasing less frequently. Several factors may explain the decline, from changes in traffic composition to longer decision-making cycles. It is worth checking which sources brought additional traffic, which products and offers attracted new visitors, and how frequently they made purchases compared to other website users.

Which Categories Convert Visitors Into Buyers More Effectively

High traffic volume does not necessarily translate into an equally high share of buyers. In the Pharmacy & Drugstore category, 13.8% of traffic accounts for 27.2% of buyers, while in Fashion, 26.9% of traffic generates only 19.5% of buyers.

The difference may be explained by how quickly customers make purchase decisions. For example, pharmacy products are more often purchased to meet an immediate need, while choosing clothing may take more time. Before the sales season, retailers should compare conversion rates within their own category.

New vs. Returning Customers: Who Shops During Sales?

On Black Friday 2025, the number of new buyers increased by 48% compared to the beginning of the week, while the number of returning buyers — those who had previously purchased from the store — increased by 23%.

During sales, the number of both new and returning buyers increases, but growth among new buyers is significantly higher. For businesses, this is an opportunity to increase sales in the short term while expanding their customer base for further engagement after promotions end.

The value of Black Friday depends on how many new customers a business can bring back for another purchase.

Despite the influx of new buyers, returning buyers still account for the majority of Black Friday shoppers.

On Black Friday 2025, the share of new buyers increased to 40%, compared to 32% in 2024. Accordingly, the share of returning buyers decreased from 68% to 60%.

For comparison, the average shares of new and returning buyers from February to August 2026 were almost equal — 48% and 52%, respectively.

What This Means for Ecommerce

Businesses should not build their Black Friday strategy solely around acquiring new customers. In 2024–2025, returning customers accounted for 60–68% of Black Friday buyers, so retailers should focus on activating their existing customer base through personalized offers, product recommendations, and segmented campaigns.

At the same time, the growing share of new buyers during Black Friday makes customer retention and encouraging repeat purchases particularly important.

How to Prepare Your Customer Base for the Sales Season

One of the key tasks before the sales season is to encourage repeat purchases among existing customers. To do this, it is worth identifying the following groups:

• Customers who purchased last year but have not returned since: these customers need a personalized offer.
• Customers who may already need to make another purchase: the timing of a repeat order can be determined based on each customer's purchase history, for example, using the Regular Demand trigger.

Segmenting customers into new and returning buyers alone is not enough, as even customers with previous purchases can differ significantly in their activity and needs.

A detailed example of a retention strategy can be found in the MAUDAU case study.

When to Start Communicating Before Sales

According to Yespo data, orders start increasing a week before Valentine's Day, while growth slows down on the day itself. Black Friday follows a different pattern: the peak occurs on the day of the sale.

A week before Valentine's Day, the number of orders is, on average, 12% higher than the typical level for the corresponding days of the week. Before Easter, sales generally remain at or below their usual levels and drop sharply on the holiday itself.

In 2025, steady order growth ahead of the season's peak day began on November 21, a week before Black Friday. The highest order volumes were recorded on the Monday before Black Friday and on the sale day itself.

During the sales week, traffic increased by 42%, while retailers' revenue grew by 33% in USD terms compared to the same period in 2024. For more details on last year's sales season, see our Black Friday 2025 study.

Therefore, retailers should start communicating in advance, while shoppers are still choosing products and looking for deals. Practical campaign examples can be found in our article on Black Friday marketing ideas for 2026.

Share of Mobile Purchases During the Sales Season

In November 2025, 78% of transactions were made on smartphones, compared to 75% in November 2024. On Black Friday itself, the share was lower — 75%.

On weekends and holidays, the number of orders placed on desktop devices decreases, while the share of mobile orders increases. Traffic follows a similar pattern: desktop visits are noticeably lower on weekends.

Therefore, before the sales season, retailers should test the checkout process on mobile devices. For each channel (email, SMS, Viber, push, App Inbox), go through the entire journey from clicking a message to completing payment and assess how convenient it is for shoppers.

Which Channels Drive Purchases Most Effectively?

On Black Friday 2025, retailers sent 121 million messages, more than half of which were emails. For Yespo clients, email is the most popular channel: it is cheaper than SMS and Viber and allows for extensive offer personalization.

Based on the company median, SMS generates almost 12 times more purchases per 1,000 messages than email.

Viber also generates more purchases per 1,000 messages than email: the median is 2.1 versus 0.54. However, SMS and Viber are more expensive than email, and the SMS format limits the amount of information that can be included.

Therefore, these channels are used selectively: as follow-ups to email, for high-intent segments, and for specific offers.

Which Other Channels are Worth Using?

App Inbox works with logged-in users. When someone visits a website or opens an app, they see notifications in a dedicated message center, similar to Facebook or YouTube. App Inbox delivers messages about abandoned carts, promotions, and personalized offers. The channel allows businesses to engage with logged-in users directly on their website or in their app without requiring a separate subscription.

Widgets are another channel for communicating with website visitors. They support segmentation, allowing businesses to display relevant offers for each segment and each page.

Each widget should serve a single business goal: acquire a new contact, help a hesitant shopper, remind someone about a product in their cart, or collect feedback. Its effectiveness should be measured against that specific goal.

For more ideas, explore our selection of 12 Black Friday widgets.

There is no universal formula for choosing the right channel. First, businesses should determine which customers they want to bring back, with what offer, and at what moment. Then, they should evaluate the cost of each customer contact across different channels (such as a single SMS or Viber message) and the results it delivers.

The goal of omnichannel communication is to coordinate customer interactions across different channels and adapt messages to customer behavior and previous actions.

How Many Emails During Sales Are Too Many?

There is no universal number: messages become spam when they are irrelevant or sent too frequently. Unsubscribe rates and spam complaints within your own contact base should be your benchmarks.

Yespo's guidelines for monitoring email campaign quality:

• Up to 0.1% spam complaints and up to 0.3% unsubscribes — normal.
• 0.1–0.3% spam complaints or 0.3–1.2% unsubscribes — a reason to take a closer look at the campaign.
• 0.3% or more spam complaints or 1.2% or more unsubscribes — consider pausing the campaign and reviewing the segment, frequency, and offer relevance.

During sales, a single customer may receive messages from several campaigns and automated workflows at once. If unsubscribe rates increase, businesses should first reduce message frequency and keep only the most active segments in their main campaigns, while re-engaging inactive customers through a separate workflow.

How to Increase Website Conversion Rates: Personalized Recommendations Even With Limited Visitor Data

In spring 2026, the Yespo team conducted a month-long A/B test of recommendation effectiveness across 21 ecommerce websites. Conversion rates increased on 19 of them, with a median uplift of 7.9% and a maximum of approximately 18%.

Recommendations improved conversion rates even among visitors with a short browsing history. This means product recommendations can be personalized even with limited website interaction history.

The team tested product recommendation blocks based on a multimodal model. Several types of blocks were tested, each leading in a different metric:

• "You May Also Like" — highest CTR: 21.3%.
• "Personalized for You" — highest purchase conversion rate: 4.86%.
• "Similar Products" — highest AOV: UAH 3,138.

To ensure a valid comparison of average order values, data from the same stores was used.

However, clicks do not necessarily translate into sales. The block with the highest CTR does not always generate the most purchases or the highest AOV, so the metric should be selected based on the specific goal of each block.

To prepare for seasonal demand growth, test different types of product recommendations in advance and determine which ones work best for your store.

What to Do Before the Sales Season Starts

Before the sales season begins, businesses should complete five key tasks:

1. Prepare your contact base. Start collecting new contacts now. Increase sending volumes gradually: a sudden increase, especially involving inactive recipients, raises complaint rates and the risk of landing in spam.
2. Personalize your offers. Instead of offering the same discount to your entire contact base, segment shoppers based on their purchase history and behavior. Test recommendation blocks separately on the homepage, product pages, in the cart, and in emails.
3. Use SMS and Viber selectively. These channels cost more than email, so they should be used for high-intent segments, specific offers, and workflows where the results justify the costs.
4. Simplify mobile shopping. Go through the customer journey from clicking a message to choosing delivery and completing payment.
5. Set up repeat purchase workflows. Post-purchase workflows, replenishment reminders, and re-engagement workflows for customers who haven't purchased in a long time should be running before the sales season begins.

Black Friday attracts new buyers, but its long-term value depends, in part, on how many of them return. That is why businesses should prepare not only promotional campaigns but also repeat purchase workflows that will continue running after the sale.

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If you're preparing for the sales season, submit a consultation request. The Yespo team will work with you to identify opportunities to improve customer communications.

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