Brits Will Spend £6,607 on Amazon Black Friday Deals in their Lifetime

Brace yourself for Black Friday! What originally started as an American custom is now a big deal over here too. Almost three-quarters of Brits have admitted that they too will be shopping over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period (albeit that 76% of their purchasing will be made online). When it comes to online shopping, it is Amazon that leads the charge. Not only was the retail giant responsible for bringing the American custom to our shores in 2010, but it now accounts for 54% of all Black Friday shopping in the UK. At Moneyzine we have looked into how much money the average Brit spends on their lifetime on the retail holiday and how much of that spend can be directly attributed to Amazon:

Amazon Bought Black Friday to the Brits

Next Friday, the average Brit will spend £184.55 on Black Friday. For 54% of Brits, the day provides an excellent opportunity to shop early for Christmas presents while picking up some bargains in the process. Of those set to shop, Generation Z is by far the savviest, with 79% intending to pick up a great deal on the day.

It’s not for everyone though and there are certain stores, such as Apple, that famously refuse to get involved. For many others, it is the biggest day in the shopping calendar – with Barclaycard reporting a 3.2% rise in transactions during 2022’s event. This is great news for Amazon, which alone accounts for 54% of all Black Friday purchases in the UK, with the average adult spending £99.65 through the e-commerce giant. This year, Amazon’s deals will stretch all the way from 17th November through to Cyber Monday on the 27th. The biggest bargains will of course appear on the day itself.

Brits Spend on Average £12,237 in Their Lifetime on Black Friday

The average life expectancy in the United Kingdom is currently 82.31 years. Most will begin shopping for themselves at around 16 years’ old, so the typical Brit has on average 66.31 shopping years in their course of life. As the average person currently spends £184.55 each year on Black Friday, this points to an overall spend of £12,237 on Black Friday bargains in their lifetime. 54% of that total, or £6,607, will go directly to line the pockets of Jeff Bezos. At first glance this may seem like an astronomical sum. After all, the average lifetime Black Friday spend is equivalent in scale to purchasing a brand new car, even the Amazon bill alone would get you a week’s break in the Maldives.

When looked at from this perspective, these apparent bargains may start to feel a little less special. However, personal finance expert Jonathan Merry believes that there are real advantages that are not being exploited:

Regardless of what deals are available, the average Brit will spend £823.40 during this festive season. However, with only a shade over half of shoppers (54%) using Black Friday deals to make progress with their Christmas shopping list, it seems that, if anything, the British public aren’t doing enough to take advantage of bargains. Leaving Christmas shopping until December is rarely a good idea, and there are real benefits to starting off the process on Black Friday.

Personal finance expert, Jonathan Merry

Methodology

To determine how much the average adult spends on Amazon Black Friday deals in their lifetime we first looked at the Wunderman Thompson Black Friday Insight Report which determined the average spend for the United Kingdom on Black Friday 2023 to be £184.55.

The data mentioned that 54% of all Black Friday spending in the United Kingdom will be carried out on Amazon. Our Amazon Black Friday spend was determined as 54% of £184.55 or £99.65.

We used World Population Review to find the average life expectancy for the United Kingdom, which is currently 82.31 years. We deducted 16 from this amount as we postulated this to be the age at which a typical citizen would start shopping for their own friends and family. This gave us an average number of shopping years.

We multiplied the average spend of £184.55 by the average number of shopping years, which gave us a lifetime Black Friday spend of £12,237.

We multiplied the average Amazon spend of £99.65 by the average number of shopping years, to give us a lifetime Amazon Black Friday spend of £6,607.