Black Friday numbers, it speaks for itself…
For the last few years Black Friday has taken South Africa by storm and by the looks of things, it is going to be bigger and better in 2018! Looking at the global and local sales numbers, can your company afford not to participate?
To give you an idea of some of the important Black Friday numbers:
- In 2017, the US sales for Black Friday weekend estimated to be $16.74bn…
- In 2015 ABSA reported that card spends increased by 81% on Black Friday compared to the average day throughout the year and by 40% on Cyber Monday.’
- com data suggested that in SA, Black Friday 2016 website sessions jumped by 936% from 2015.
- “Compared to the average number of transactions occurring on all other days of the year‚ South Africans made 2 571% more purchases on our site on Black Friday 2017‚ more than twice as large a percentage increase as that of any other country.” (Picodi.com)
- 50% of local shoppers used their smartphones, followed by computers and laptops, 46.50% and only 5% used their tablets to shop.
Black Friday is expanding to become a shopping period, rather than a 1 day event, with retailers across the globe offering deals and specials that will last for a few days. More and more retailers are already gearing up and getting ready for the shopping frenzy that waits on the 23rd November 2018.
Takealot took this ‘shopping period’ to heart and started their sale on 12:01am on the Friday morning and it continued throughout the weekend and Cyber Monday. According to their website, ‘updated results showed a 280% year-on-year uplift in visits, generating more than R6-million in GMV (Gross Merchandising Value) in the first hour, growing to R12-million by 2am and over R87-million by the end of the day. As the Blue Dot Sale continued through Saturday and Sunday, Takealot doubled its GMV from last year, driven by a 70% uplift in site traffic and order numbers.’ They achieved these numbers, even though they had downtime with website issues, we cannot help to wonder what it would have been if they were up and running all the time!
Email marketing to your own database, 3rd party data rental, updated websites, sms campaigns, competitions etc. is all ways to get into the action and tell clients and potential clients what you are planning! Besides promoting Black Friday, these are also opportunities to capture data and grow your existing database for future direct marketing!
Black Friday is relatively young and new in South Africa. If Black Friday is a good fit for your company, ensure your strategy is in place and you can kick it off early in September / October. If done correctly, you’ll see a massive increase in your sales! You don’t have to be one of the big retailers to participate, be creative and drive sales!
Are you ready? No matter if you think that Black Friday has no place in SA, the reality is, if your company doesn’t participate, you stand the chance of losing out. The numbers speak for itself.
Sources:
https://www.takealot.com/company-news/black-friday-2017-record-breaking-challenges-for-takealot-com
https://www.takealot.com/company-news/black-friday-2017-record-breaking-challenges-for-takealot-com
http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/689/171414.html
