The words Black Friday and Cyber Monday will either muster excitement and loosen those purse strings or will strike fear and anxiety; either way, you can’t deny the marketing campaigns, both originating in America, have taken our nation by storm. Jump feet first into a digital trends blog full of insights, statistics and background on the Black Friday buzz of 2018!
Black Friday & Cyber Monday
It wouldn’t be a digital trends blog without a few year on year comparisons to give a little perspective, so how has consumer spending changed since 2017 over the whole Black Friday Weekend?
Last year, Black Friday brought in sales of 1.4bn, which showed a 11.7% increase from 2016. This followed concerns that Black Friday weekend 2017 was not even going to match the previous year, so can retailers rejoice in the same success this year? Well, yes and no. Retailers this year witnessed more transactions than 2017, up by 10%, but for items which were smaller in value, so spending was in fact down by 12% (Barclaycard).
The run-up to Black Friday Weekend has started to merge into one long week of deal-grabbing and bargain hunting so spending is more likely to be spread across a larger time frame than just those two, or even to four days. Spending in November overall has picked up from the poor October retailers had been suffering; this 7bn cash injection can be seen as a relief, but following such a quiet October, the higher the spending from now until Christmas, the better.
While many retailers have opted out of Black Friday in the past, this year saw more bricks and mortar stores taking part and offering up their share of Black Friday deals! These same retail stores however were not the main beneficiary of the weekend splurge; online retailers were the ones who took the lion’s share of the sales this year, with in-store footfall dropping by 7% when compared with the previous year; and according to Loqate & GBG, online transactions rose by a staggering 46%, with much of this shopping being done on mobile devices during the morning commute!
Don’t Forget Small Business Saturday!
It’s easy to get drawn in by the huge discounts that will, no doubt, continue as we inch closer and closer into the holiday season, but in rebellion against the giants offering ‘unmissable deals’ the small businesses out there have also embraced their own day – Small Business Saturday. Encouraging us as customers to spend our money with independent retailers, small business Saturday arrived in Britain in 2013 thanks to American Express. With entrepreneurial levels experiencing a high, there’re plenty of local, independent and small businesses to support this year, and it’s taking place this Saturday. You’ll find another digital trends blog to follow the retail trends of Small Business Saturday next week, so watch this space to keep a breast of the last industry figures.