Reach for the sky
The bargain day that kicked off Christmas shopping and got rid of old stock has become so big that it needs cloud capacity
For something that’s not been in SA for too many years, Black Friday promotional sales are making a noticeable impact on the local retail sector.
Conceived in the US in 1952 as the start of Christmas season shopping the day after Thanksgiving, the name Black Friday began to be used only in the early 2000s.
It has come to be seen as a way for retail chains to get rid of stock — including dated electronic goods — at large discounts on the last Friday of November.
In SA, the sales extravaganza has morphed into a marketing tool for e-tailers looking for a way to generate interest in buying things online.
According to World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck, Black Friday has proved to be effective in getting people to buy online.
“Our research has shown over the years that, as people become more experienced in using the internet, their propensity to shop online increases. This is part of a World Wide Worx model known as the digital participation curve.”
The missing factor in the curve, he adds, is that most retailers do not know how to convert that propensity into actual online shopping behaviour. “Black Friday is becoming a powerful tool for converting propensity into behaviour.”
The promotion has done more than spark interest in buying online: it’s reshaping how
South Africans buy over the period. Sales in November 2017, for example, were 7.2%, or R1.36bn, higher than the average for the preceding two months, according to research group Nielsen’s report “Black Friday: Heyday or Hype”. Measured year-on-year, sales were up an impressive 8.8%, or R1.6bn. Even more remarkable was that overall sales for the November and December period did not suffer, but actually rose more than 8%. Even the SA Reserve Bank noticed its impact. Its Quarterly Bulletin in June reported a “robust increase” in durable and semidurable goods in the fourth quarter of 2017, in part as a result of “substantial ‘Black Friday’ promotions”.
The Black Friday deals worked out well for consumers who, on average, saved R2,600, according to research by Global Analysis Team. It found that 66% of respondents surveyed — a 12 percentage point increase on 2017 — said they would participate in Black Friday this year.
For their part, retailers are again expecting a sharp rise in sales this year. “We expect sales to more than double this year,” says Takealot chief marketing officer Julie-anne Walsh. On Black Friday last year the group racked up about R87m in sales — R6m in the first hour.
Though Takealot has been one of the biggest proponents of Black Friday, its systems have been overwhelmed by the event almost every time. One year, though, the