Spain accounts for 5% of total trade sales in our country, a figure that contrasts with 17% in the United Kingdom and 15% in Germany. In spite of this figure, the estimates concerning the Black Friday in Spain in 2018 were close to 1.3 billion euros in online salesThis represents an increase of 18% over the previous year.
In conclusion, we continue to grow year after year in the sale of products through the Internet, but we still have a wide margin of growth compared to other countries around us. We have the consolation of being ahead of Italy, although seeing the structural problems of the neighboring country is not to be very happy. What is clear is that Black Friday is here to stay.
After the consumerist hangover of these days, it is time to stop and analyze how e-commerce stores have behaved and see if the announced offers have really been for that much. In this regard, it is very interesting the follow-up you do the OCU[i], as a "mystery client", to 32 reference websites during the days leading up to Black Friday. These are the main findings:
- Between October 23 and November 4 there is hardly any variation in prices.
- Single's Day has had little impact at major retailers and, with few exceptions, they barely joined this date. It is true that "Singles' Day" is more prevalent in Asia and on websites such as Aliexpress, but some of the big players such as Amazon and Mediamarkt did slight discounts between 5% and 10%. However, it is surprising to see that shopping on that day was 4.4% more expensive than previous weeks.
- Price levels in the weeks leading up to Black Week remained at the same level.
- In the week of Black Friday price reductions were strongHowever, there were also increases in other products and you may find that you are buying something more expensive than in previous days.
Surprisingly, if we analyze the average minimum price between October 23 and the week of Black Friday, there is an average increase of 1.6%. So it follows that there is a big reduction in products hook for Black Friday that is offset by the rise of others that in previous weeks are at a better price.
In summary, once again this year, the Black Friday campaign has once again given a boost to online sales and there is still room for growth in the coming years.
[i] https://www.ocu.org/consumo-familia/compras-online/noticias/black-friday-evolucion-precios
