Black Friday is already becoming interesting this year. Here’s our round up of what to expect from retailers, supermarkets, marketplaces and couriers:
High Street Retailers and Black Friday 2015
John Lewis are protesting that they’re forced to play but don’t want to as it simply cannibalises sales and forces them to give away margin in their “Never knowingly undersold” pledge.
Argos are doing their utmost to drag sales forward with a heavy investment in TV advertising, weekly deals that are already running and for good measure giving their new home delivery service away for free with a minimum £50 spend. Unsurprisingly the free delivery ends before Black Friday weekend or they probably wouldn’t be able to cope, they’ll almost certainly be stretched to the limit anyway that weekend.
Argos also had the embarrassment of their website going down last Sunday, and last year retailers such as Curry’s had to institute a queuing system before shoppers could even view their website. We expect to see website queues again this year.
Argos aren’t alone in trying to drag Black Friday forwards, Littlewoods and Zavvi along with other retailers are also already running deals and we expect many more to join them as Black Friday nears.
Supermarkets and Black Friday 2015
Tesco are already starting to struggle, currently on the Tesco Direct website is a message saying “We are currently experiencing high demand. If you choose Click+Collect or Standard delivery, please allow five to seven days for your order to arrive. Express delivery is currently unavailable“. If they’re this busy over two weeks before Black Friday it doesn’t bode well for the biggest shopping day in UK history.
Asda, fearful of repeating last years instore riots, have thrown in the towel and refuse to play the game, somewhat surprisingly seeing as their parent company Walmart are one of the biggest Black Friday participants.
Marketplaces and Black Friday 2015
Marketplaces are of course gearing up as well. eBay have just announced eight days of Black Friday deals from their retailers. Amazon as well as running their own deals are for the first time partnering with third party merchants enabling them to get in on the action and are expected to have over 7,000 Black Friday deals for 2015.
Even the smallest niche marketplaces are gearing up, last year, sales over Black Friday weekend increased by over 100% on Yumbles, the foodie marketplace, compared to the previous weekend. As a much larger marketplace in 2015, they’re expecting this year’s sales to be even stronger and preparing to strongly market their seller’s deals.
Who’s not playing the game for Black Friday 2015
Asda aren’t the only people refusing to take part in Black Friday this year. 6% of UK consumers have categorically decided not to take advantage of the discounted prices during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend according to new research by myHermes.
Some people won’t be drawn and after seeing the hordes fighting in the aisles over a half price over priced out of date telly will simply wisely spend their money on what they really wanted rather than go mad and splash out on goods they don’t need. Who can forget the woman who bought a cut price Dyson in Asda last year and then declared to the press she didn’t need it was wasn’t sure what she was going to do with it?
Are your sales down?
The myHermes survey also revealed that more than six in ten people are now saving ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday in order to secure better prices during that particular weekend.
36% of consumers reckoned they would complete all of their Christmas shopping during the event. The 25 to 34-year old age group will be the most proactive with 51% of those quizzed ensuring all festive gifts are purchased during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, compared to just 11% of those aged 65 or over.
Interestingly not a single respondent aged between 18 and 24 said they would not embark on a shopping spree during the event, compared to 10% of those aged between 55 and 64.
Absenteeism and Black Friday 2015
One of the biggest issues facing employers is employees putting in holiday requests so that they can go shopping. Even if holidays aren’t given, there’s the danger of workers spending half the working day desperately trying to snag bargains on websites which are running slowly or implementing queues. Unauthorised use of the Internet could send productivity spiralling down and that’s without workers surreptitiously making purchases on their own mobile devices and mobile phones.
What are your plans for Black Friday? Are you going to do all your Christmas shopping or are you going to ignore the event and simply gear up to sell as much as possible and work flat out to get the whole lot shipped?
One Response
I will be having a 27% off all items on my Amazon store on the 27th. Lots of lingerie and swimwear xx