Here comes the black Friday again, joyful plus shopping days for people and money earning days for Businesses. It’s a day that comes after thanksgiving and is regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. There are some states in US which treats this day as public holiday calling it as “The Day After Thanksgiving”. Though the word black has negative connotation but the use of black in this case alludes to profitability as retailers see a surge in retail sales on this day as a result of shopping day. This day comes with heavy discounts and special deals attracting many consumers to buy higher margins goods thus making good profits.
Why called Black Friday?
As per wiki: “Many retailers report some of their highest profits on Black Friday. The black portion of the name, “Black Friday” relates to businesses recording their losses in red ink and gains in black. This tradition lives on in modern accounting software, hence the name.”
Financial Data:
Last year (2012) a record of 89 million people either went to stores or shopped online which was 4 million up from last year i.e. 85 million.
If you look at the individual spent, the average spent was $423 last year while it was $398 in 2011 and $365 in 2010. This year it is expected to go really good i.e. around an average of $500 per person which will of course hold a major participation from online sales too.
Refer the last 5 years data below:
|
YEAR |
Average SPENT |
Total SPENT |
|
2012 |
$423.66 |
$59.1 billion |
|
2011 |
$398.62 |
$52.5 billion |
|
2010 |
$365.34 |
$45.0 billion |
|
2009 |
$343.31 |
$41.2 billion |
|
2008 |
$372.57 |
$41.0 billion |
Now let see what we fill for below soon:
|
YEAR |
Average SPENT |
Total SPENT |
|
2013 |
?? |
?? |
Amazon.com topped the list in getting the maximum unique users on Black Friday while walmart.com took the second position in the list having 3.52 million unique users that period.
|
Top Five Visited Online Retailers on Black Friday |
Unique Visitors |
|
|
1 |
Amazon.com |
7.71 million |
|
2 |
Walmart.com |
3.52 million |
|
3 |
Best Buy |
2.75 million |
|
4 |
Target |
2.25 million |
|
5 |
Apple |
1.49 million |
*These data are based on last year.
RTB Graph Last Year:
Courtesy : Adweek
Move towards Online retail:
There have been gradual shift from traditional brick-and-mortar stores to online retail and today it has reached to good numbers giving a figure as sales of $1 Billion via Internet in total of $12 billion of total sales. Now though it’s an estimated value but still a reachable and a handsome value it has reached. There are people who do believe in looking at the item before taking it home but they now have started to do the same thing with a different way –they now look at the things they want to buy and order it online so as to get it on fewer prices what is marked in a store. To prove this you can refer the data which says on Black Friday alone, internet sales has increased by 20% year-over-year, while brick-and-mortar sales has fell by 1.8% which is actually a bad news for the stores but good news for the businesses that are handled online in which online advertising domain makes a good profit too.
Online advertising companies also make a good income during this time as for retailers making sales online requires support from third-party fulfillment companies due to the increased business during the holidays. The advertisers, publishers, agencies, etc. everyone makes a profitable income and also at times recovers the loss (if any) of the company. It is also important for all as it is the time to win the trust of advertisers on the company getting them on the list for always ultimately getting business all the year. The Ad networks are heavily loaded with number of campaigns to traffic; so much of pre preparation, up gradation of ad server, planning, extra attention on each campaign becomes the priority.
Five Important points to make 2013 Black Friday profitable:
- Proper Planning – Ignore instance thought or action, I know it works great at times but are risky too so better it will be to go step by step with proper planning.
- Start Early – It’s always beneficial to start early so if you haven’t prepared till today please get on your knees and say get set go!
- Gather knowledge – Knowledge is the key to success so please just don’t plan and put energy on deeds but also spend some time reading, market analysis, growth rate, sales data and etc.
- Ignore the mistakes that happened last year – Please brainstorm with your team and collect the entire mistake that happened last time. It is always said that you learn from mistakes but in a year you may forget that also so please recollect all the data to be aware of those previous mistakes.
- Hire temporary staffs – If required please don’t hesitate to hire more people, if you can’t manage them as a permanent employee than hire some as contract basis or for some days period. Business is always about give and take so here you need to throw some money to get some more money.
Conclusion:
Showing the last year stats and awareness was all about concluding the importance of black Friday in online world. So just tighten yourself as it’s very near (29th of November) and start making more efforts than required to enjoy the rain of money…