Black Friday has become a sale, offer and discount phenomenon. It has taken the retail industry by storm in America and travelled quickly over to the UK with some truly incredible results.
Cast your mind back a year ago and on the news you would have seen the incredible Black Friday shopping scenes across many retailers in the UK. People queueing for hours on end waiting for stores to open. People wrestling on the floor over discounted televisions and websites crashing because of the sheer number of visitors.
The excitement and volumes of spending last year surprised most, as it exceeded expectations and predictions, so what will Black Friday hold for us this year?
More of the same. In fact we think it might be even bigger and better than last year…
Experian-IMRG predicts that this year for the first time ever in the UK, online retail sales will exceed the £1 billion mark in a single day!!! Yes that does deserve 3 exclamation marks. In fact the actual predicted total is £1.07 billion, which is a 32% year-on-year rise.
“The size and scale of Black Friday 2014 took everyone by surprise, overwhelming some carrier and retailer operations, as order volumes came in at a full 30 per cent higher than expectation. All the indicators point to a much larger Black Friday this year – both in terms of greater numbers of retailers taking part and growing shopper interest – so the opportunity is vast” Justin Opie, managing director at IMRG
Some stand out stats from 2014
• An estimated £810 million was spent online in the UK on Black Friday
• 181 million online UK retail site visits
• Smartphone traffic was up by 57% from Black Friday 2013
• An estimated £720 million spend on Cyber Monday
A trend that they are predicting this year is the spread of Black Friday, known as the ‘Black Friday period’. With Cyber Monday pulling in with so many purchases and with the week leading up to Black Friday being so busy with marketing information from retailers, it looks like this year the Black Friday madness will not be pinned down to just one day.
Among all the sale, offer and retail madness the best way to guarantee that your marketing messages and offers will be heard is via text. Whether you want to get your customers through your door or clicking into your online shop – sending them a text message is the best way.
98% of all texts get read. 29% of tweets, 22% of emails and 22% of Facebook posts get read
(Frost & Sullivan)
These stats are from your average day, imagine how many tweets, Facebook posts and emails are going to be sent on the week of Black Friday This means that those numbers are probably going to be even lower – but your customer is almost certainly going to read that text message you send.