Today Black Friday is a popular international trend. Black Friday's mega-shopping kicks off a Christmas sales season that does not span just one continent: Antarctica (a clear penguin flaw!). In Russia, in 2019, the campaign is being held for the seventh time.
The annual sale, held on the fourth Friday of November, during which stores offer maximum discounts on their products - Black Friday - is an example of how you can combine business with pleasure. For buyers, this is the availability of what they want, consolation for the wallet and significant savings in the family budget. For sellers, this is a marketing ploy that allows you to attract customers to shopping centers and online platforms, and get good profits. When a three-day sale comes, warehouses open up, prices drop, people rush to shop in stores and to virtual counters of online supermarkets. Shopping grandmasters gain access to an extensive selection of headings at discounted prices.
According to experts, almost 20% of the products sold annually in the West fall between Black Friday and Christmas. The average percentage of the decline in the prices of goods in the world is 55%. To understand the scale of Black Friday, imagine that one day all the people of Germany went shopping together. In the United States of America, about 80 million people are rushing about in search of discounts this period, spending about $ 60 billion on purchases. The figure is comparable to the annual budget of a small country. With such a huge amount of money, you can, for example, buy a pair of shoes for all residents of India. On Black Friday, the average American family can save hundreds to thousands of dollars.
BlackFridaySale in Russia
In our country, the history of the November sale, which is an analogue of the American BlackFriday, began in 2013. For three days of the sale, 5 million purchases were made for the amount of 300 million rubles. By 2017, the number of those who like to save has increased by 4 times, the cost of purchases amounted to 30 billion rubles, with 6 billion accounted for by online commerce. Last year, more than 20 million Russians took part in Black Friday and purchased goods worth 52 billion rubles. A fifth of the purchases were made online. The number of retailers who joined the campaign was about 5000. According to the forecasts of the Russian Internet Trade Association, during Black Friday 2019, the average resident of our country, hunting for discounts, will spend 8540 rubles ($ 132) on purchases. This is less than the Belarusians ($ 150), but more than the Ukrainians and residents of Kazakhstan ($ 113 and $ 64, respectively).
Russians' consumer demand priorities are ranked as follows: the first three positions are clothing, electronics, and footwear. This is followed by cosmetics and perfumery, household appliances, gifts, goods for children. Books, sports goods, and underwear are in the least demand.
On discounts, you can "win" and "burn out"
Most of the Russian trading floors, preparing for the November “shopping frenzy”, promise visitors impressive and even exclusive discounts. When examining attractive advertising brochures, remember that discount discounts are different. It all depends on the group of goods that retailers offer for sale, and the demand for a particular position from buyers. A significant reduction in prices - by 70% or even 90% - occurs only for clothes, shoes and accessories (especially for branded items from the collections of previous seasons). The "corridor" for the amount of discounts on electronics, gadgets and household appliances is much more modest: from 15 to 30%, a price reduction of up to 50% is possible here only for some "slow" items. On average, on Black Friday, prices in Russia are reduced by 20-50%.
These are statistics. And the realities of life are such that sometimes when buying a thing “at a discount” you can pay for it even more than on a normal day, or you simply don’t have time to “snatch” what you need at the sale. Some unscrupulous participants in promotional trading on the eve of the sale almost double the price tags in order to ensure themselves "overclocking" on the days of the promotion and not to lose. Many popular products are indeed sold at huge discounts, sometimes even at a loss to the store, but usually in strictly limited quantities. Therefore, they are sold out instantly. These are the two main reasons why you need to prepare in advance for the hunt for discounts and be as attentive as possible during the sale and be vigilant. As the saying goes, meet BlackFriday Sale "in sound mind and memory."
A checklist for those who like to save money
A few shopping rules will help a visitor of Black Friday sales to make profitable purchases.
You should think about what products are needed in advance, it is advisable to make a list. In online stores, you can add selected items to the basket or wishlist ahead of time. If you subscribe to the mailing list of stores that have a sale, they will send you a reminder and a list of the best deals.
When shopping, do not be distracted by trifles or unnecessary "useful" goods (even if at a super-duper attractive price). While you are choosing cheap T-shirts or cool cups, someone will steal the last TV or desired branded thing from under your nose.
Recently, the "Black Friday" promotion has affected not only goods, but also a number of services and services. These are all kinds of offers from tour operators, providers, banks, real estate market participants. Decide what is more important - to buy goods for the whole year or, for example, to purchase a tour to a country where you have wanted to visit for a long time, but somehow it didn’t work out.
Different stores have different Black Friday dates. As a general rule, the promotion starts at 0-00 o'clock from Thursday to Friday. The largest retail chains and online retailers start trading at midnight. Please note that not all internet sites operate according to local time. If you buy from American online stores, do not forget that their midnight is 7 am in Moscow.
Specialty retail stores with a small assortment may only open at 5 am on Friday. Others, on the contrary, wanting to avoid the excitement and crush, start the sale on Thursday from 19-00 or 20-00. You need to understand that on Friday the sale is just beginning, but it can last 3 days, until Monday, and for some, the whole week. Some stores during this period change their usual opening hours: they prefer to open not at 10 am, but early or trade around the clock.
Despite the fact that the first visitors always have the advantage, since all the goods are still in stock, Friday is of course considered the main day of the sale. This date is the peak of the hottest offers. Actual goods at a bargain price are scattered in the first hours of the start of the promotion. That is why you should not postpone shopping for the following days. The participant's task is to get to the sale as early as possible, until everything is sorted out.
It is possible that some of them may be unavailable. For example, on days of a hot sale, it is unlikely that cash will be paid after receiving an order from an online store. In the heat of shopping battles, payments with a bank card or through electronic wallets often fail. It is not always possible to make a purchase on credit. Of course, this rarely happens - but it is better to insure yourself: "God protects the saved."
To really save money, and not overpay, even before the sale starts, you should carefully study and compare prices in stores. It is enough to enter the name of the product you have chosen in the Yandex or Google search engine, go to an online store that does not participate in the Black Friday sale and see what the price is there. There are unscrupulous retailers who make the discount less or simply write that the product is at a discount, although the cost remains the same. On the eve of Black Friday, some simply raise the price tags in order to subsequently make a discount and not lose anything.
If you did not manage to monitor prices for one reason or another, check the cost of goods on the spot. Do not rush like a bull at a red rag, at a beautifully crossed out price tag, or do not extend the general promise of a discount "for everything - up to 70%" to a specific product. Remember (or check using the mobile Internet) the real price of your chosen position. Pay attention, if the mark “the item is not participating in the promotion” is made in small print. For example, on a typical day, you looked after a bed with a mattress and a base: 19500 + 8800 + 4700 = 33 thousand rubles (without assembly and delivery). On Black Friday, a purchase can cost a completely different figure: 30070 bed + 10430 mattress (not participating in the promotion) + 5500 base. Total: 46 (!!!) thousand rubles.
In addition to goods, you should pay attention to services. Their cost at the time of the sale most often also decreases. But it also happens the other way around: by making a discount on a particular commodity item, the seller does not change the terms of delivery of bulky items, furniture assembly, etc.
Another important distinguishing feature of Black Friday is the difficulty in returning goods. Returning to the store that day (for any reason) is considered bad form.
As for the sellers, according to the organizers of Black Friday, all retailers wishing to take part in it must follow several rules: discounts must be maximum; the product must be available in sufficient volume; before the start of the promotion, it is forbidden to increase the price tags for the assortment.
