As those who shelled out hundreds of pounds on the perfect bargain during Black Friday week take stock (literally) of what they now have to keep them entertained for the next few months, praying that their luck remains and christmas sales don’t have them wishing they had the willpower to resist the deals that were on. Let’s take a look at some of the more notable facts and figures from the Black Friday week of 2018.
Figures from the National Retail Federation in the US, show that 41.4 million people shopped exclusively online between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday. A figure that was mirrored in style by the UK performance as the biggest sales day of the UK year failed to stop the continued slum in high street sales.
US sales figures for these notable days:
- Cyber Monday: $7.9 billion, up 19.3%
- Black Friday: $6.22 billion, up 23.6%
- Thanksgiving Day: $3.7 billion, up 28%
Which deals are still going on?
For the consumer, the most popular category for shopping black friday deals is technology, with televisions, laptops, and phones becoming synonymous with the black friday tag. Which? Is a great website for gaining a good understanding of product reviews As savvy shoppers ensuring they get the best deal being able to check deals that are currently running as well as checking previous deals, on sites such as CamelCamelCamel, are something that the retailers need to embrace and understand will become a growing part of a buyers journey in this coming periods. Sites that allow you to compare mobile phone prices, laptop prices and many others have been a growing trend as the plethora of advertisements on television now make abundantly clear.
How has this affected the market?
Leaders in data PricewaterhouseCooper released data on their findings behind consumer insights on Black Friday and the days surrounding this. In that data they also provide information helpful for consumers trying to accurately judge the optimum time to make their purchases. “Historically retailer promotions increased steadily from mid November onwards. But, in the past two years, we’ve seen retailers launch special promotions for the Black Friday period, before returning to full price and thus preserving margin in the key Christmas present buying period of early-to-mid December…” It seems that this approach was something clearly seen in the buying habits of those shoppers at UK chain John Lewis who saw record profits during Black Friday with their sales improvements of 7.7% compared to the same period last year. This has however been negated by the tremendous drop the chain has seen in the week following Black Friday, as sales dipped lower than pre-black friday.
What does next year hold?
When you look at the sales figures and hold on the audience that Black Friday has, especially in the UK and US, it would be silly to suggest that this will quickly die out. However competition from the world’s biggest ecommerce platform is quickly spreading into Europe and seems destined to lay waste to all those before it. Alibaba, which is a chinese based platform, dominates the asian market on these deals with its one deal day, called singles day on 11th November producing the biggest ever sales figures, and by quite some margin. The same amount that was sold during the entire 24 hours of Black Friday on amazon, was sold in 5 minutes on Alibaba during their singles day. I don’t have the words!