Viewpoint:
OneFeed have been underwhelmed with the UK uptake of Black Friday. Just 22 per cent of our clients saw yearly peak sales, reflecting the wider market with shopper numbers and transactions down across the board. (Image: Weekly Searches YoY for Home and Fashion verticals, respectively).
Brick and mortar retail saw a recovery in central London, with visitor numbers up 1.5 per cent YoY, while elsewhere saw reduced footfall of 5 per cent< (Google Insights).
OneFeed reported ahead of cyber weekend the current economic climate and promotions would start earlier than ever and demand would be spread throughout the month to make “Black November”. This came to pass. In fact, higher sales were seen sporadically throughout the week leading up to ‘the big day’.
This trend is also driven by consumer perception as deals are far less attractive than in past years. With retailer margins squeezed harder than ever, there is little scope to offer hype driving 70 per cent – 80 per cent discounts. In many cases, standard Sales pages are redesigned as Black Friday landing pages.
Looking ahead, UK spending on presents & festivities is expected to fall 5 per cnet from £23bn in 2022 to £20bn this year, putting additional pressure on retailer’s bottom line.
With 50 per cent of Christmas shopping completed after Cyber weekend there is plenty of scope to hone marketing strategies and increase share of market. In particular, CPC rates are far lower and less competitive relative to Search demand.
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