Black Friday is growing but unpopular with 60% of German retailers wishing the imported American sales day didn’t exist. Even from those who take part in the price cutting day, 44% would prefer the even didn’t happen.
The study by Roman Kmenta discovered that consumers largely view Black Friday as an online affair, even though many high street retailers will be promoting instore offers. 42% of consumers say they’ll be hunting for bargains online rather than in physical stores. What’s also interesting is that consumers don’t think the hype will impact their behaviour, whilst at the same time 94% believe that consumers are driven by reduced prices to buy more on Black Friday… just not themselves!
Almost half of retailers believe Black Friday is a growing but harmful to trade whilst 30% see it as a benefit. 45% of consumers think that the boost in sale is profitable for retailers, but realistically consumers have no idea on retailers margins and whether they are simply winning turnover as opposed to low margins or even selling at a loss. Only 12% of retailers think that Black Friday is growing into an event that will give them increased profits.
So what do retailers want from Black Friday – a quarter hope it’ll attract new customers but only 5% think that they’ll realistically be returning customers.
There was agreement from retailers that the more Black Friday is growing the more it damages their Christmas business. Over the longer term, 43% of retailers believe that Black Friday generally hurts retailers rather than having any real benefit.
4 Responses
I do not blame them. This mostly FAKE sales event has killed peak trading. Plus wait till Jan/Feb and there will be a raft of retailers that go to the wall in the UK and I expect in Germany also.
Consumers have completely bought into this rubbish….finding a real deal is actually pretty hard work. Amazon have done a great job of selling this and everyone have just played follow the leader….and they end up hanging themselves in the end.
It is just another example of the race to the bottom that suits only a FEW retailers mainly US tax dodgers who do not have to play on the same field as everyone else,
Black Friday only makes sense in the context of being the day after Thanksgiving. Since we don’t have that here, there is no reason for BF to exist. As far as I remember it was ASDA who introduced it here a few years ago when Wal-Mart bought them out. But the way we are bombarded with ads for Black Friday, “Black Friday Week” or even “Black Friday Month” the average person would be forgiven for thinking “’twas ever thus”!
Frankly it doesn’t influence me in any way, as a seller and private consumer also, I know all the tricks of the trade and I know BF is a scam. Save your money by buying only what you need or what you were going to buy anyway.
If you don’t believe in it, don’t do it. Not something that I have ever done or taken part in. How can you race any further to the bottom?
I get messages from Amazon every day telling me to compete, I rarely get an email these days saying they are discounting the seller fee.
Many deals are cheaper after black friday i
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50551415