Black Friday sale events relevant to Indian retail

30 November 2022, Mumbai

Black Friday what we understand in the west is a sales weekend that comes after Thanksgiving Day and is broadly correlated with post-Thanksgiving and pre-Christmas shopping assumes significance in the annual shoppers' purchase calendar.

Over the years Black Friday phenomenon has somehow emerged as a notable marketing opportunity and as the fervour is catching up in India, it only gets bigger through the years turning out to be one of the best days for e-commerce/tailers to conduct sales every single year cashing in on customer demands on the back of enthusiasm it generates and resultant incremental eyeballs bring extra traffic, desired sales outcomes to their respective websites and in turn spurring the average footfall meaningfully.

Make no mistake the limited point article is trying to make is the term ‘Black Friday’ is a misnomer having no negative connection/connotation for that matter.

Indian shoppers are essentially bargain hunters

As trade essentially looks continuously to broaden its bucket size and ticket price to seize & build on opportunities coming their way and, increased exposure to netizen India through the period it has only come in as a fundamental demand tailwind for the brands & retailers alike sniffing the possibility of this facilitate draw massive crowds on the back of off-prices/discounted prices doing tricks.

Growing Americanisation in India

Brands and retailers have been trying to piggyback creating Black Friday sale events as we start to see harmonization/amalgamation of "Global Shopping Culture" in India for the past few years.

Electronic goods and smartphone makers, e-commerce platforms, grocery stores, fashion brands, restaurants and cafes, multiplexes, hotels, and malls have clambered aboard the Black Friday bandwagon. Many are extending the sale period over the weekend to the start of next week or Cyber Monday, originally coined for e-commerce sales.

Catch the piece of the action

The article is an attempt to get into the exercise of historic data crunching giving insights into its performance trail through the previous decade or two of holiday sales drawing data from the National Retail Federation (NRF), anecdotally it is an opportunity in the making with an annual spending increase averaging around Black Friday centric opportunity to be 3.5 percent.

And interestingly the aggregate spending of the corresponding year showed an increase growing to 886.7 billion US dollars.

There was a 20 percent to 25 percent surge in footfalls and business by Friday evening and this was expected to rise further over the weekend. Brands and platforms are hoping to create another consumption event along the lines of Republic Day and Independence Day sales that were launched over a decade back.

Some retailers have been seeking to popularise Black Friday over the past few years.

Marketers are looking to create events by giving some discount as it works as a demand aggregator wherein Black Friday and Cyber Monday are their latest bet.

Shoppers Come Out In Droves

These events create a consumer need & want considering that we are living in an inflationary environment where saving money is important/imperative to customers.

It’s how Republic Day, Independence Day sales, or even a regional occasion like Akshaya Tritiya has been created as a national sales day.

Most of the MNCs already know Black Friday, so it’s easy for them to replicate it in India given that brands, retailers, malls, and e-tailers respond by coming out with value propositions/offerings in the form of strong sales-promotional campaigns, in the anticipation of driving incremental buying/purchases.

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