COVID-SAFE shopping for Black Friday
Black Friday promises to be bigger than ever this year, and is fast overtaking Boxing Day as the Christmas sales event of choice.
But stores aren’t taking any chances, looking at ways to restrict crowds to manageable levels and implementing more COVID-SAFE strategies for the duration of the sale.
Leading retailer JB Hi-fi has launched its week-long promotion two days early, to limit store congestion.
“Starting (Black Friday) earlier and giving customers more ways and time to shop has helped manage the expected traffic, along with shopping centres having their own their own measures in place,” says Gary Siewert, JB-HI Fi marketing director.
The business is opening earlier and closing later, in addition to following strict cleaning protocol, providing contactless payment and managing store traffic. Shopping online is also being encouraged, with click and collect and contactless drive-through collection available at some locations.
While crowds of bargain hunters are expected across the country, a large percentage of sales will be made online, reinforcing Australia’s growing preference for online shopping during the pandemic.
“COVID-19 has certainly driven growth in online traffic,” Siewert says.
Department stores have also increased social-distancing efforts ahead of Friday’s crowds.
“We’ve followed COVID-SAFE plans for a little while now, which we’ve ramped up ahead of Black Friday,” says Tony Sutton, retail operations director at Myer. “This includes increased cleaners, designated entries and exits, hand sanitisers, sneeze guards on all point-of-sale registers and COVID marshals throughout the stores to ensure social distancing measures are being practised.”
Black Friday was originally a postThanksgiving shopping tradition in the US, but the rise of online shopping has helped it go global.
“We have seen rapid growth reported in recent years and, with the big shift towards online shopping due to the pandemic, we expect this year will be the biggest Black Friday sale on record,” says Paul Zahra, CEO of Australian Retailers Association.