Deal-hungry consumers will play a game of chicken with retailers this year.
Traditionally, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, has been one of the biggest shopping days of the year and used by retailers to gauge how well they will perform over the November-December holiday season. It was also the day shoppers counted on retailers to introduce their biggest holiday deals.
But signs are that deal-hungry consumers will play a game of chicken with retailers this year. They’ll wait till later in the season for retailers to yield and give them even deeper discounts.Black Friday Losing Its Grip
Ever since Amazon AMZN launched its first virtual “Christmas in July” Prime Day in 2015, with competing retailers pulling forward their big bargain events to match, Black Friday as the year’s best day for bargain shopping has been losing steam.
Summer retail promotions encouraged shoppers to start their holiday shopping earlier in the season, so Back-to-School shopping has morphed into Back-to-Holiday shopping too.
Then, in 2022, Amazon introduced a second big-deal day in October, and competitors responded in kind. They also moved forward their Black Friday promotions as well. Already, Walmart WMT , Amazon, Target TGT , Best Buy BBY , Nordstrom and more have launched early Black Friday sales events this year.
“Thanksgiving weekend, which once upon a time was the kickoff to the holiday season, is now more of a midway point, or maybe the beginning of the end of the shopping season,” said National Retail Federation president and CEO Matthew Shay during the association’s press call announcing last years’ Black Friday results when 73 million shoppers turned out to shop.
However, that was a 13% drop from the 84 million shoppers who shopped in-store on Black Friday 2019. And this year’s Black Friday may be more of the same: a disappointment.Majority To Skip Black Friday
A recent YouGov survey found that 52% of U.S. consumers plan to skip Black Friday shopping altogether, including 24% who’ve shopped Black Friday before but will take a pass this year. The YouGov survey was conducted among 1,200 adults between October 16-18, and the results were released exclusively to journalists.
Women and those aged 35 to 55 years, critically important demographics for retailers, are less than enthusiastic about Black Friday shopping this year.
