We’re down to just 30 days until Black Friday week, so I thought I’d give you all a look into my crystal ball. I’ve been analyzing the Black Friday and holiday sales for over a decade and I’m pretty dead on with my predictions. Things sure have changed, especially in recent years. The online shopping and social media explosions have had an enormous impact on the volume of sales and availability of items. And to think, just a few short years ago, Walmart attempted their first online Black Friday sale, which crashed their site within seconds of going live. It was down for weeks!
So, what do I think is going to happen this year?
1. Earlier Online Black Friday Sales When stores started providing some of the Black Friday items online a couple of years ago, they were timed to start along with the in-store sales. This led to a lot of confusion. Shoppers weren’t sure whether to stay home or go out. Stores were losing out on the advantage of pulling customers both into the store and onto the website. They’ve since moved the sales up earlier in the week, some starting as early as the Sunday before, so that shoppers have multiple opportunities to spend their money.
2. Increased number of Black Friday Sale items available online. Every year, more and more of the doorbusters are available online.
3. Staggered release times of online Black Friday sales items. Many stores offer free shipping with a minimum purchase amount. Consumers have been proven to spend more money on merchandise to avoid paying shipping costs. Stores will capitalize on this by releasing items in batches so that customers place multiple high dollar orders.
4. Constant daily deals. What started as a twelve day sale offered by a handful of companies grew so much last year that every big box and small town store started offering a daily deal on their website. The twelve days has spread out to cover the entire season. Most of these will start on November 1st and carry through to mid-December. These usually sell out early in the morning and are 50% off of retail price- or more.
5. Cyber Monday- more hype, even fewer deals. Cyber Monday has always been one of the biggest let downs in sales. Stores have always banked on people buying something, just because it’s a Cyber Monday deal. The items are often priced much higher than the weeks leading up to it and are lackluster in comparison to the online Black Friday sales. If you’d like a little more background, here’s an article we published a few years ago detailing it. Cyber Monday: Tips, Tricks, and Information
6. Earlier opening times. Do I even need to say that? After decades of holding strong at 7:00 a.m. openings on Black Friday, the past decade has been filled with stores opening hours earlier each year. This year, expect to see many of the big retailers opening at 4:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving.
7. Staggered doorbuster sales. Toys R Us started this trend a couple of years ago by offering different doorbusters at midnight, 3:00 a.m., and 6:00 a.m. This allowed them to capitalize during times that other stores weren’t offering doorbusters, so shoppers headed there. By offering different rounds, they were also able to get the same customers in the door three times in one day! Other stores have since adopted the idea, but with less success. Walmart now runs separate doorbusters, too- but the deals available in the latter sales aren’t as impressive as the first. I expect to see them picking up some of the slack and offering better deals throughout the doorbuster sales.
8. Great television deals. The last two years, a 32″ LCD has been priced as low as $99. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see them hit $80 this year and 40″ to hover around the $100-$120 price tag.
9. More bundled deals. Stores typically can’t discount prices on items such as gaming consoles, iPads, etc. They can add in bonus items, such as accessories and gift cards. The value of the gift cards increased last year, sometimes up to $200 per item. Stores are definitely going to try to optimize these bundles.
10. Better price matching and price adjustment policies. Retail stores will be matching online prices at many more retailers, and in come cases, even price matching advertised prices from their own websites. They will also be adjusting prices, meaning that if you find a lower advertised price, you can take your receipt in and receive a refund. Stores such as Walmart and Target will do this for the entire season, meaning that you can have up to a 50 day window to take advantage of another store’s sale price.
Please remember that these are just predictions and are not guaranteed. Do you agree with them? Do you have any questions you’d me to answer?