Specialty food and drink retailers saw no uplift in sales during the Black Friday shopping period according to data from retail management platform Vend.
Across the board, sales dropped by 13% compared to 2017.
Discounting levels were also down 12% across the week compared to last year, indicating that independent retail stores may be pulling back due to the pressure it places on margins.
Black Friday originated in the US and refers to the day after Thanksgiving sales. It marks the start of the Christmas shopping season for Americans and, like Australia’s Boxing Day sales, creates large scale hysteria in malls across the US.
“There have been reports that Black Friday weekend has now become the biggest trading period of the year,” Dave Scheine, APAC country manager for Vend, told Inside FMCG. “This may well be true for big-box stores and major online retailers, but our data shows this doesn’t necessarily translate for smaller businesses.
“Shoppers have still been splashing the cash – or credit – over Black Friday this year, but they need to also be mindful to support local, alongside looking for online and big-box deals. It’s notoriously hard for independent retailers to compete on price, although many are still doing this – for example over the weekend home and lifestyle stores ramped up their discounting by over 200%.”
Adelaide saw the top sales increase out of the big Australian cities compared to an an average week, with an 8% increase. Sydney sales increased by 6%, followed by Melbourne and Gold Coast at 4%, while Perth saw no change.
A number of independent stores decided to boycott Black Friday, feeling it could have sustainability impacts and also because they were uncomfortable using the term ‘Black Friday’ to refer to the sales event, since it has a different history in Australia.
The Black Friday bushfires of January 13, 1939, in Victoria, were among the worst natural bushfires in the world.
Black Friday was also a bomb in the UK, with data from Vend showing that in-store retail spending over the shopping period this year dropped by 7% compared to 2017, while spending over the entire week was down 10% on last year.
Aussie retailer uncertainty over Black Friday
While Woolworths and Coles put their toes in the Black Friday water this year, many other chains skipped the sales.
Woolworths participating in Black Friday for the second time this year, offering discounts on hundreds of products online, meanwhile Coles offered a small selection of deals.
Research from Mccrindle last year found 27% of Australians have never heard of the event, with 40% of Australians thinking Black Friday doesn’t really happen here.
Queensland University of Technology marketing professor Gary Mortimer told News Corp Black Friday was still “evolving” in Australia.
“Shoppers in the US last year spent about $19 billion over that four-day period, those numbers are nowhere near that here in Australia,” he said.
“Kogan last year reported a sales tick of about $4 million. What we’re seeing here in Australia is certainly more physical retailers jumping on the bandwagon, particularly consumer electronics retailers like JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman.”
“This year, we will again see Black Friday and Cyber Monday kicking off the pre-Christmas sales, and the ARA predicts these sales days will encourage retailers to prepare for the upcoming pre-Christmas scramble that occurs during the busy trading period,” said Australian Retailers Association Executive Director Russell Zimmerman.
