Black Friday has just gone by.
For the uninitiated, Black Friday comes a day after Thanksgiving; celebrated in the US on the 4th Thursday of November. And now turning into a global phenomenon.
India too saw some specks of Black Friday participation.
It wasn’t a 24 hour sprint, for sure. It extended to the weekend and in some cases even upto Monday! From Nov 29-Dec 02, 2019.
A number of marketers leveraged Black Friday for clearing old stocks! Black Friday participation helped the archetypical marketers in mutiple ways – enhanced their image by displaying Black Friday Sale (came across as contemporary and buoyant); increased footfalls of shoppers; and of course, consumers got to see their new collection and it generated sales for new stocks and those with marked down prices.
Black Friday discount across collection! Some marketers extended a flat discount across their entire range of apparels and accessories – a major trade off for shoppers looking to stock up for the holiday season.
High value freebies bundled with purchases of a certain denomination! Offers were clubbed with attractive freebies from the collection per se, generating consumer pull and call to action.
Savings made consumers gloat – From the consumers’ stand point – whether it is about shelling out less or deriving tangible benefit from offers, mental math of cost benefit analysis (CBA) spurred a sense of satisfaction.
Cheer before Christmas; While Christmas is the time for gifting and shopping, for Indian consumers, Black Friday narrowed the gap between Diwali and Christmas. Consequently, a win-win for both marketers and consumers, ringing in cheer.
Urban centred! Black Friday is very big city, highly urban jamboree.
Online, it was just another discounts and offers bandwagon! Everyone piggy bagging on Black Friday to clear old stocks -shoppers in big and small towns largely focused on great deals.
Some notable take outs
- With the ongoing sales/ discounting by eCommerce players and given the ephemeral shopper mindset, retailers can’t afford to be out of sight or mind for long.
- Days such as Black Friday give retailers an opportunity to stay visible
- Black Friday is even more relevant due to direct linkages to shopping
- Though it is difficult to say whether the Black Friday promotion succeeded or not, but it has certainly created some buzz.
Early days! Great concept for everyone to latch onto!
