Is Black Friday still a thing? We partnered with Chirp to give us the low-down from 741 adult South Africans who said they were going to shop for Black Friday specials.
Black Friday IS still a thing!
More than half of those who plan to shop Black Friday deals are ‘five out of five YIPPEE!!’ excited about Black Friday coming up. This is a big number, but lower than last year’s 64%. It also differs by demographic – younger shoppers are more excited than older shoppers, low-income shoppers are more excited than middle- and high-income shoppers. About one in six of the shoppers we heard from didn’t shop Black Friday last year. Interestingly, they’re less excited about Black Friday than people who DID shop the deals last year.
Bricks vs clicks
Even though our survey was an online one (i.e. all our respondents are tech-savvy with no technological barriers to online shopping), the overall preference is still for shopping in physical stores, even when it comes to Black Friday, with 55% saying they plan to do all or most of their Black Friday shopping in physical stores. This is true even for younger ‘digital natives’, who we might otherwise have expected to be doing all their spending via apps and websites.
Spend it like Beckham
The sweet spot for planned Black Friday spend (and note: this is planned spend) is between R1,000 and R5,000 – this applies to 43% of our shoppers, with a further 25% saying they could spend as much as R10,000 (very similar figures to last year). Interestingly, it’s middle-income shoppers who plan to spend the most, not high income earners.
Only 4% say they plan to spend less than R500.
Happily, like last year, more than half of our Black Friday shoppers say they’ve actively saved up for Black Friday, with a further one in four saying their Black Friday shopping will come out of their November budgets. Again it’s the younger shoppers who’re more likely to have saved up. And those five-out-of-five excited shoppers are not just excited, they’re ready: two-thirds of them have been saving for this.
About one in six say they’ll buy on credit and worry about it later. Sadly, low-income shoppers are twice as likely to be taking this financially risky approach.
Strategic shopping ahead
Aspiring Black Friday shoppers seem to be approaching Black Friday quite strategically, with more than half making a list of the things they need or want (probably checking it twice, but we didn’t enquire), and more than a third are researching ‘normal’ prices (because we’ve all seen the odd example of merchandise being marked up just before Black Friday so it can be ‘dropped’ to a special Black Friday price). Only one in four have been signing up to get news about Black Friday specials, probably an indication of inboxes and message threads already overflowing with comms from retailers and brands.
Back to basics
We asked which categories of products people planned to shop – would it be basics or indulgences? It seems even with economic indicators trending upwards, shoppers are still feeling the pinch, and ‘groceries’ are at the top of the list for more than half our shoppers, followed by fashion and tech. However, fashion is at the top of the list for most 18- to 24-year-olds and almost knocks groceries out of top spot for the high-income shoppers.
About 10% say they’re playing a wait-and-see game when it comes to which categories’ deals they’ll shop.
Park it at the supermarket
Considering shoppers’ plans to prioritise grocery deals around Black Friday, this could be wishful thinking by shoppers, but they expect the best specials to come from grocery specialists. These are the retailers shoppers expect to provide the best specials:
- Game
- Checkers
- Makro
- Takealot
- Clicks
Only 11% nominated Amazon as a source of the best Black Friday deals.
Retail therapy for ME
We wondered if shoppers saw Black Friday as a good time to stock up on gifts, whether for Christmas or other occasions, and for themselves or for others. When it comes to gifts, they’re prioritising themselves over their friends and families (it’s been a tough year – we’re not judging). Men are much more likely than women to be treating themselves, as are younger shoppers vs older shoppers. It seems the chance to treat oneself may be inspiring a fair amount of the excitement around Black Friday, with those who rated their excitement a four or five out of five much more likely to be planning to gift themselves than less excited shoppers.
Hey, big spenders
If we look at the big spenders (those who plan to spend more than R10,000) and compare them with our total sample, they’re more likely to be female, younger than average, better off financially than average (still, only 37% come from households earning more than R30,000 a month), living in Gauteng and parents. Two-thirds (vs 52% overall) are five-out-of-five excited for Black Friday, 85% have saved up for the event, and they are prioritising gifts, but equally for themselves and for others.
In closing
It’s way too late to be offering advice to retailers and brands participating in Black Friday, but it seems the event is here to stay, with savvy shoppers making the most of the deals they have come to expect.