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Black Friday is a colloquial term for the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Many stores offer highly promoted sales on Black Friday and open very early, or some time on Thanksgiving Day. Black Friday has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year in the United States since at least 2005.

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Using opinions from a SaleCycle survey of US and UK retailers, we look at some of the benefits of Black Friday sales for retailers and we analyse the cons of participating in discounting around Black Friday weekend. Understanding the pros and cons can have a significant impact on retailer’s Black Friday ecommerce strategy.

The majority of retailers will be taking part in Black Friday promotions this year, according to our survey of retailers.

Black Friday participants survey

However, retailers have differing views around Black Friday, so we asked our survey respondents for the pros and cons as they see them.

While we relay the information below we also dive into some of the Black Friday & Cyber Monday statistics.

Increased Traffic and Sales.

People are looking for deals, they’re also shopping for Christmas, and Black Friday and Cyber Monday focuses a lot of traffic and sales into a short period. It’s the one of the best days for ecommerce sales throughout the whole year.

Last year, we saw sales volumes many times those of an average day on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

This is a clear opportunity for retailers to capitalise on customer demand and bring extra traffic to their sites.

An Opportunity to Clear Stock Before Christmas Season

Many retailers see Black Friday as an opportunity to clear old inventory in order to introduce newer stock in time for Christmas.

This applies to fashion retailers of course, but electronics retailers can also offer discounts on items like TVs and laptops knowing that newer models are coming soon.

Customer Acquisition

New customer acquisition can be expensive, but Black Friday offers retailers a chance to acquire new customers at a key time of year.

If you acquire customers around Black Friday, and keep them happy, then you have a chance to drive repeat sales in the Christmas period and beyond using a good post purchase email strategy.

If customers can be retained in the longer term and they buy at full price later, this justifies discounting around Black Friday.

People have a real intent to purchase around the Black Friday weekend and this can translate into incremental sales.

“Black Friday is a great day for driving users into the site for sale items, but it’s also a huge day for non-sale items too, with users coming to see if that item they wanted has been discounted, and then buying it even if it isn’t”.People have a real intent to purchase around the Black Friday weekend and this can translate into incremental sales.

This means that customers head to sites looking for bargains, but end up buying full-price items as the money is burning a hole in their pockets.

Our own stats from last year show this propensity to buy. Normally, shopping cart abandonment rates for retailers are around 81%, but they’re much lower around Black Friday weekend.

Last year, abandonment rates dropped to 76.68% on Black Friday 2020 and 76.91% on Cyber Monday 2020 as people looked to grab a bargain.

“Black Friday is a great day for driving users into the site for sale items, but it’s also a huge day for non-sale items too, with users coming to see if that item they wanted has been discounted, and then buying it even if it isn’t”...