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A little bit of history. The term “Black Friday” originated from Philadelphia 1960s describing the heavy pedestrian and vehicular traffic that would occur on the day after Thanksgiving. Since the 2000s this is a colloquial term for the Friday following Thanksgiving and now has a positive connotation: retailers moving from being ‘in the red’ to being ‘in the black’ – therefore turning a profit on that day. All the shops are announcing huge discounts to clear stock.
Why are people willing to spend more during Black Fridays?
According to Vtex, in the US specifically, online spending on Black Friday reached $9 billion USD, growing by 22%, and $14 billion USD for the entire Black Friday weekend. Overall, the 5-day Black Friday and Cyber Monday period brought in around $34 billion USD, accounting for 18% of total online sales for 2020. Black Friday is the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and many merchants want to encourage buyers to start buying as soon as possible. This makes sense since most people are taking days off on the day after Thanksgiving, they rush to the Stores to make a great purchase at a discounted price.
Additionally, people operate based on different emotions. For example, fear. They are afraid that if they do not make a decision now, they will be left outside with nothing. On the flip side, love encourages people to buy holiday gifts for friends and family ahead of time.
Black Friday is America’s favorite shopping day and traditionally, people are getting ready for it. Nowadays with the COVID-19 situation stores are forced to switch to an online shopping format. For many reasons, apart from obvious pandemic restrictions, it is more convenient than wandering around a crowded place in search of a nice deal.
Reasons US shoppers did not want to shop in physical stores last year
- 60.8% of consumers reasoned that they do not plan to shop in-store because there would be too crowdy. (Drive Research, 2020)
- 57.1% had health or safety concerns because of the pandemic. (Drive Research, 2020)
- 25% stated that they could find better deals online. (Drive Research, 2020)
- 20.5% didn’t want to shop in-store cite parking issues. (Drive Research, 2020)
Black Friday is, without a doubt, a huge deal for e-commerce. As a result, the day is receiving a significant number of online visitors, and you need to be prepared for that. Ensure that online traffic will not slow down or break your website.
