Shopping Trends and Black Friday

(Suhail Ahmed, Karachi)

The term "Black Friday” did not become widely used until more recent decades. It is an informal name for the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, which is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. Black Friday is not an official holiday except California and other states observe "The Day after Thanksgiving" as a holiday for state government employees. Since 2005 it has seen the busiest shopping trend day of the year in United States. Violence occurring between shoppers on Black Friday, since 2006, there have been 12 reported deaths and 117 injuries throughout the United States. According to data released by Adobe Shoppers spend $4.2 billion online on Thanksgiving, 14.5% increase from last year. Black Friday online sales on track to hit $7.4 billion and more than 165 million people expected to shop.

An Analysis of Consumer Behavior on Black Friday, Linda Simpson has stated that 73% were female and 27% were male during visit with average individual observation. During visit he observed 60% of the shoppers appeared to have a specific product in mind, particularly electronic media items, such as DVD players, DVDs, Digital Cameras and X-box games. In-Line and Store Entry Customer Behaviors most of the stores opened early morning and noticed 200 customers in-line when stores opened.

There is a huge crowd hence some of the customers “fell down or appeared injured” when the store opened. This increase the customers arguing with police officers, lack of parking availability and at the end of the line people were mad and rude. More than 70% of the consumers are aware of the black Friday event awareness was exceptional among UK (92%), Canadian (91%) and US shoppers (88%) the concept of Black Friday discounts is a long-established tradition.

Previous Black Friday participation has shown growth in 2018. In USA, consumer participation has shown growth from 38% in 2015 to greater than 50% in 2018. Same growth has been observed in Canada which has raised from 26% to >60%. In UK the consumer participation growth is increased 19% to >55%. Adobe Analytics reported online sales increased 23.6% year over year on Black Friday and approximate reach to $6.22 billion. According to National Retail Federation, number of estimated 114.6 million consumers plan for shopping on Black Friday. Sales projected to reach up to $730.7 on this occasion.

In United States Black Friday is the biggest shopping season and has been regarded as a great opportunity for retailers to increase their sales. In recent years this practice has extended to other countries in the world. Black Friday has also been observed the biggest online shopping day in the history in recent years.

Suhail Ahmed
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