Black Friday and Sales opportunities

[engine]

Black Friday has spread to regions outside the U.S. as retailers look for new ways to boost their sales. I've also seen B2B Black Friday offers, although not that many.

Looking at the U.K., sales in November last year exceeded December sales for the first time, and online sales have more than doubled since 2010.
Some businesses have been running so-called Black Friday events for a while now, so it's merging into a not-so-special " day. Additionally, not every business is taking part.
[bbc.co.uk...]

I'm not sure the bargains are really there these days, with much of it surrounded by hype and brainfluence to "trick" consumers into a deal.

Is your ecommerce business participating?

[blend27]

I actually had a banner running this morning that said that we have no BF Sale going on, just for kickers. In 4 hours we did better that last year and the year before that at the same time span.

For the past week been monitoring competitors on what they did. Nothing special, 10% here, 15% OFF there. I think the GIG is UP on trickery.

Will see what Monday drags in... :)

US/Canada Market. Jewelry.

It's a mooost wonderful time of the yeeaeaeaeaar!

[topr8]

black friday has certainly spead both to the UK and also to the whole weekend! ... not just friday but sat and sunday

>> I've also seen B2B Black Friday offers,

yes, i had 2 direct phone calls from suppliers, offering me special deals on black friday!

>>Additionally, not every business is taking part.

yes ... very much so, my business does very much NOT take part ... we do sell our own products (the suppliers mentioned above were 1) a packaging company, who we buy boxes and wraps for mailing from, and 2) a supplier who provides something we use as part of our production process)

... we market ourself along a fine line of exclusivity but also at a fair price - we never give discounts, it's kinda part of the ethos, the prices are already fair and reasonable. (is what we say - and also what i believe) ... thus discounting is totally against our ethos!

[tangor]

for one ecommerce site I work on we put up:

COLORBLIND FRIDAY
Our Prices Are Too Low Already!
Don't Believe Us? Check our Competition

and provided links to a small handful of deep discounters we won't name here at WW... (but you know who they are)

Sales for the day were 245% of previous year's "black friday".

For a different ecommerce (a very special product in the 6 figure range)

NO BLACK FRIDAY
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FOR THE BEST?
FREE SHIPPING
3 YEAR WARRANTY

Sales were 16% of previous year

For the third ecommerce...

Black Friday?
Sorry, we have no loss leaders or inventory we need to get rid of before the tax man comes. What you see is what you get.

Sales 135% of previous year.

I guess folks are beginning to catch on that brick and mortar places (no names, but where most of the violence occurs and gets news) has 3 4k 55" tvs at $13 (sic) is mostly a case of farmer's friend to get you to walk in the door.

Cyber Monday will probably have much the same result ... the kiddies can be fooled some of the time, just not all of the time.

[edited by: not2easy at 4:17 am (utc) on Nov 25, 2018]
[edit reason] OP requested edit [/edit]

[engine]

@blend27 Keep us updated as to whether it turned out to be worthwhile participating.
@topr8 as above, but, obviously, in the not participating department.

I did spend about an hour's research on Friday visiting all the usual suspects, plus searching to find some smaller businesses. There were not that many genuinely huge savings, imho. Most were discounted by a percentage of perhaps 10 or even up to 15%. These are kinds of savings are quite normal throughout the year, imho. I did find a few really good saving out there, without naming names, 50% off from the usual RRP, and they were not end of range or out of season products.

It's interesting to hear people talking about Black Friday. Many are caught up in the hype and buy, buy, buy, just because it says it's on sale and it's a special sale day.

Interestingly, there was one product the mrs engine and I have been interested in for a while now and we've been waiting to see if it gets discounted on Black Friday. Guess what, it wasn't.

I really do wonder if there's a numbness being built up in society with the expectation of discounts, and thoise that choose not to participate may not get the order. The thing is the frenzy will be over in a few days and we can all go back to our usual margins.

[RhinoFish]

Reminds me of this tv show I tried to get some products onto, they had a rule, the tv spot savings had to be 50% or greater than your regular prices.
Anyone who can do that, imo, doesn't deserve any attention - you're either way over priced normally, or you're lying about your actual regular prices.
Perceived value versus actual value, actual value loses in this case.
Harumpfff.