The shopping blitz of Black Friday has long been an indicator of what’s working in eCommerce — and what’s not. The 2019 event offered three major trends that every retailer should learn from. By applying these insights to your site-search and merchandising strategy with ExpertRec, you can set the stage for stronger conversion and growth.

1. Mobile Traffic Surges — Search Must Keep Up

On Black Friday 2019, mobile search engine traffic surged — especially in the UK, where mobile growth approached half the volume of desktop.

Why this matters for search & merchandising:

• Shoppers increasingly use mobile devices to discover deals, browse during free moments and compare options. You need your search bar and merchandising placements to work seamlessly on mobile.
• Mobile “micro-sessions” (short visits, quick queries) mean you must serve highly relevant results fast — if the mobile search experience lags, you lose the opportunity.
• At ExpertRe, we emphasise responsive, fast search results, strong autocomplete/ autosuggest, and mobile-ready merchandising rules so you capture the mobile-first shopper.

Action tip:

Audit your mobile site: check if search loads quickly, results are relevant even for short queries, and product placements are optimised for thumb-scroll behaviour. Use ExpertRec’s analytics to see mobile queries vs conversion and adjust.

2. Consumers Buy Across Devices — Unified Experience Wins

Black Friday 2019 didn’t mean desktop was dead; many users researched on mobile and then converted to desktop.

Implication for search + merchandising:

• Your site-search and merchandising logic must span devices — consistent ranking, filters, synonyms and promotions should carry from mobile → desktop.
• If a shopper’s first touch is via a mobile search, your merchandising engine needs to pick up that intent when they convert on desktop (or vice versa).
• With ExpertRec, you can integrate cross-device behaviour: search term history, session data and merchandising rules that adapt as the visitor switches devices.

Action tip:

Map the journey for your users: mobile search → desktop purchase → what merchandising and search results did you show on each device? Where did intent drop? Use that to refine your cross-device search and merchandising strategy.

3. The Products Shopped Remain Surprisingly Consistent

The 2019 data showed that the basket of top searched/ bought products didn’t shift radically year-on-year. For example: home furnishings, women’s gifts and cosy socks were consistent.

What this means for search & merchandising:

• Even as platforms and devices change, search terms and product interests stay stable. That means your search system must support long-tail queries and variations of popular terms (e.g., “women’s cosy socks” vs “women’s warm socks”).
• Merchandise smartly: highlight perennial favourites, but mix in novelty and seasonal items. Your search & merchandising engine should let you boost “evergreen” items and slot them for maximum visibility.
• Using ExpertRec’s features, you can analyse search term history, identify consistently high-volume terms, and build merchandising rules (boosts, slots, locks) around those key products.

Action tip:

Review last year’s top search terms and product funnels. Are you still promoting those items effectively? Are your synonyms and search mappings capturing variant phrases? Update your search index and merchandising rules accordingly.

Putting It All Together: A Pre-Black Friday Checklist

With these three trends in mind, here’s a checklist to ensure your site-search and merchandising are ready for peak season:

• Mobile performance: Test search load times on mobile, check autocomplete/ autosuggest results, and ensure merchandising placements are thumb-friendly.
• Cross-device continuity: Ensure search history, filters and merch placements flow between mobile & desktop. Use analytics to trace user device switches.
• Search term stability: Analyse recurring search terms and queries from past years. Ensure your search index supports synonyms/variants and your merchandising rules highlight the right items.
• Merchandising readiness: Using ExpertRec, set up rules now — boosts for top keywords, locking top-performing items into slots, and ensuring variants are grouped.
• Data-driven monitoring: During the event, monitor search to purchase rate, device conversion splits, and search term performance. Post-event, use learnings to refine for future peaks.

Why ExpertRec Is Your Partner for Peak Season Search & Merchandising

At ExpertRec, we understand the demands of peak-shopping periods like Black Friday. Our platform enables you to:

• Deliver ultra-fast search even under heavy traffic, across mobile and desktop.
• Capture and interpret search intent (including variant terms, misspellings,  and long-tail) so you don’t lose shoppers.
• Implement merchandising rules at scale — boosting key products, grouping variants, cloning rules across campaigns/regions.
• Gain analytics visibility into queries, device behaviour, conversion pathways and performance gaps so you can react quickly and iterate after the event.

When you pair these capabilities with the trends above, you’re well-positioned to not only survive peak season — but use it as a launchpad for sustained growth.

Final Thoughts

Black Friday is more than a single event — it’s a stress test of your eCommerce stack, especially search and merchandising. The lessons from 2019 show that mobile traffic and cross-device behaviour are now key, and that search terms continue to matter year after year.

If your site search isn’t ready, or your merchandising rules aren’t tuned for the mobile+desktop shopper, you risk losing conversions when traffic peaks. With ExpertRec, you get a search + merchandising engine built for scale, relevance and speed.