Black Friday turns into Black week – online sales expected to grow again
Since 2020, online sales have been on the rise during Black Friday and will be so again this year. Once more consumer organisations warn consumers of the “too good to be true” offers.
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By Bente D. Knudsen
In new research made by the Association of Danish Businesses, Dansk Industri, the coronavirus epidemic’s only effect on the sales phenomenon Black Friday will be more online shopping as in-shop sales fell last year, with rising spread they are expected to do so again in 2021.
In 2019, 64 percent shopped in a physical store, this fell to 54 percent in 2020 and in 2021, 52 percent expect to visit a physical shop.
Black Friday takes place in Denmark on the 26 November; however, many brands and shops have announced Black week or Black days both before and after that day.
On average Danes spend DKK 1,900 and shop for clothes, shoes, electronics, and personal care products at the Black Friday events.
More than 45 percent of the consumers in the research said they would start Christmas shopping on Black Friday.
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Many shops have expanded the one-day shopping event and are running good deals; Black Week offers, the whole week prior to Black Friday as well as the Monday after, advertised as Cyber Monday.
Despite being a more recent event imported from the US, Black Friday is a huge success and it gets bigger every year.
However, stay vigilant and check that the offers are for real.
Find out what to look out for below.
Consumer organisations, such as the Danish consumer magazine Tænk, recommend that deal hunting consumers keep their cool when a good offer appears on Black Friday.
The prices advertised as good deals may look like good deals, and often the advertisement also announces that only a few items are available at the exceptionally good offer.
But consumers have every reason to take time to think it over, even if it is an offer for a product they have been looking for. The price deal is not necessarily as good an offer as it says.
Making sure that you are getting a good bargain, not just being lured into buying by the enticing SAVE 50 percent or more, is important.
In past years, the Danish consumer watchdog, Forbrugerombudsmanden, warned that some deals offered on Black Friday were not real price reductions compared to the normal prices of the reduced products in the months and days before Black Friday.
For price reductions to be considered real, and not misleading or deceptive, the before price of the goods must have been in vigour for a longer period prior to Black Friday.
For instance, one retail chain offered an eiderdown for DKK 1,000 which was supposedly a rebate of 50 percent.
However, during the six months prior to Black Friday, it had been sold at DKK 1,500 and was repriced at DKK 2,000 only two days before Black Friday.
“It is not good marketing practice if the shops advertise larger price savings than what is really true. When you advertise a certain offer, claiming an important reduction on a certain day such as Black Friday, then the amount saved by the consumer must be real.”
If the consumer could have bought the product at the same price or even cheaper most of the time during the months prior to Black Friday then the Black Friday price saving is deceptive and misleading,” the Danish Forbrugerombudsmand, Christina Toftegaard Nielsen, said in a press release.
To make sure that the price of a product offers an important price reduction, it can be a good idea to check the price on sites which compare prices, such as for instance pricerunner.dk, some time before Black Friday.
You can also go online and check who else has the product on offer and at which price.
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On-line shops’ advice to consumers shopping on Black Friday is to prepare what you want to buy and be ready when the shops open their sale just after midnight.
Many online shops only have a limited stock of the selected items, so there is a “first come first serve” tendency.
Several Danish sites offer good advice and list online shops participating in Black Friday, look for blackfridaydanmark, blackfredagstilbud.dk or blackfriday.dk.
If you are going shopping in a physical shop on Black Friday to keep your credit card safe make sure that no one can see your pin code to keep your credit card safe!
Pickpockets and criminals taking advantage of stressed shoppers are on the rise according to police reports.
Fake online shops are unfortunately also a problem, however, there are a few simple ways to check the validity of an online shop.