Image by: ndanger
The day of the year that many people fear is upon us, today is Black Friday. Tomorrow signals the beginning of the seasonal shopping period and retailers all around the world will be slashing prices to try to kick-start their festive season. Traditionaly more of a US event Black Friday is becoming more prevalent on these shores through Internet shopping. But where does it come from and what does it mean to the consumer and retailer?
Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving in the US. On this day, most major retailers open extremely early, often at 4 a.m. or earlier, and offer promotional sales to kick-off the shopping season, similar to Boxing day sales in the UK. Black Friday is not actually a holiday, but most non-retail employers give their employees the day off, increasing the number of potential shoppers. It has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2008, although news reports, which at that time were inaccurate, have described it as the busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time.
Here are some examples of the madness that Black Friday can create.
And a brief summary of Black Friday.
However, in today’s world there has been a shift away from regular retail to online retail and the online retailers are not about to let holiday revenue pass them by. Cyber Black Friday was the highest day for retail traffic during the holiday season, followed by Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. The highest year-over-year increases in visits took place on Black Friday with growth of 13%.
So is this a win-win situation for both retailers and consumers? In many ways, yes. Online retailers look to be the best positioned to take full advantage of this deal breaking period. With the added comfort of being able to shop from home and not facing the murderous masses of people overcome with Christmas cheer.
Amazon have been running their Black Friday deals for years now and have come up with an ingenious system to ensure that even though it is online it is still frenzied buying. It works by having a lightning deals section, where deals will only appear for a short period of time and with a limited number of items. Once the customer has found a deal and placed it in their basket they have fifteen minutes to check out otherwise the deal expires for them. This maintains a brisk turnaround from picking to paying and will keep people scouring the deals to try and grab something.
So keep it online and avoid those ridiculous crowds.
Have you ever been involved in a retail extravaganza? Will you be doing your shopping online or risking the crowds? Let us know in the comments.
Related posts:
November 24, 2023
business