The French who plan to make purchases for Black Friday, this Friday, will be fewer than in the past to order online, and a little more to go to the store. according to Study conducted by OpinionWay* for Bonial (a marketing app for retailers), 44% of those who go shopping on Black Friday will do so only online, up from 48% last year. In contrast, 47% plan to shop online and in stores, while 9% plan to buy only in-store.
Four times the number of regular customers on a Friday
For Juliet, manager of four stores of an Italian fashion group, Black Friday has become “an unmissable event for five years, much more important than the sales period.” On this Friday, she expects in her lingerie stores as many customers as on Saturday, four times more than on a regular Friday.
“For a Christmas gift, ordering on the Internet for practical reasons is less easy, so that you can return the product to the store if necessary, for a gift package …”, you think. In its stores, a selection of products from the older collections is -50%, others around -30 or -20%, while the latter collections are not on sale. “Generally, a customer comes to get a gift, for example nice socks, and takes the opportunity to take some tights or something for himself.”
Preference for in-store purchases
After buying a lot online by compulsion during the pandemic, the French now tend to prefer in-store purchases, he confirms. Frank Rosenthal, Marketing Specialist. “With e-commerce, there is complexity with delivery, orders, and returns. Everyone knows about bad delivery experiences, and it’s starting to affect e-commerce,” he analyzes.
“There are also issues with profitability: It’s hard to find scale in e-commerce while the price of delivery is going up and the consumer wants free delivery. So consumers tend to choose free pickup from the store rather than pay for delivery which they risk losing out on.
Black Friday to buy what and spend how much?
On Friday, ready-to-wear is the top category of products that the French plan to buy on Black Friday (35%), according to an OpinionWay study. Next come toys, then household appliances and cultural products. Some products often found under the tree are down compared to last year, such as toys (25% vs. 33% a year ago) or jewelry (12% vs. 15% a year ago), while technology (smartphones, computers, or TVs) is up.
Even if they had fewer people than last year to plan their Black Friday purchases on Friday, those who do plan for a bigger budget: €398 on average, compared to €298 in 2021.
No Black Friday in independent shops
The survey conducted by OpinionWay lists the brands in which the French plan to make purchases. The most cited e-commerce sites remain by respondents: Amazon, Funak-Darti and Sidescount. Then come to the supermarkets where consumers are likely to make their purchases in stores rather than online: Leclerc, Sephora, Decathlon, Leroy Merlin or even Yves Rocher.
The big absentees from this marketing event are the independent companies. Only 5% of those surveyed plan to make purchases outside of the top 40 retailers listed on OpinionWay. According to a survey he conducted anchorstore (a site that aggregates independent businesses), 67% of independent merchants don’t offer a discount on Black Friday.
*A sample of 1,036 people representing the French population was surveyed, via a self-administered online questionnaire, from 2 to 3 November 2022.